CHAPTER V

Two streams of equal value and under the same control. Examples: The pianist and the motor-car driver.A normal phenomenon, but linked to the next class by cases of absent-mindedness.

Two streams, one being the ordinary stream of consciousness and the other a stream not under the control of the main personality, which is concerned only with the ordinary stream. Examples: automatic writing, water-divining and hysteria (see Chapter VIII).Continuous dissociation.

A continuous dissociation with a sudden irruption of the dissociated into the main stream, completely replacing it for a period. Examples: The case of the ex-soldier and those of double personality; also somnambulisms and spiritualist trances.Abrupt dissociation.

Once again I will emphasise the difficulty of drawing a line between normal and abnormal. My boy guide referred to in Chapter I was as near normal as could be, though the means by which he kept his course might be described as a product of dissociation. If he had been imaginative and I credulous he could have foisted upon me a supernatural explanation of his powers and taken his place with clairvoyants and water-diviners. But there are manifestations of distinctly abnormal character to explain which is the object of this book, and for the people producing these manifestations I propose the name of Dissociates, since dissociation is the key to the understanding of the phenomena they present.

The logic-tight compartments previously described are to be regarded as partial dissociations to which we are all liable, the partitions being unrecognised by their owner and the contents kept apart from the modifying influences of the main personality. Hence when the onlooker becomes aware of the presence of such a dissociation he does not judge the contents of the compartment by the same standard that he applies to the person as a whole.

There is nothing fresh in this point of view, which is admitted when virulent political opponents can be good friends by each ignoring the dissociated prejudices of the other, or in everyday life when in some circles the discussion of political or religious subjects is avoided for the sake of good fellowship.

Extreme dissociation by reason of a logic-tight compartment is shown in that kind of insanity in which the sufferer behaves as an ordinary beingwith ordinary actions and ideas except for the influence of a systematised delusion (generally persecutory or grandiose) of most irrational type which is impregnable to explanation or argument. On all other points the man is sane, and the purely mental origin of the disease is suggested by his remaining in good health and without mental deterioration apart from the delusional system, in this respect differing greatly from the sufferers from most other forms of insanity. Some psychiatrists claim to have traced the delusions back to repressions that took place in early life.[6]

Water-divining, or dowsing, is accepted in many parts of the world and used as a practical method of locating underground water. Official bodies as well as private individuals employ practitioners of the art, and among people generally there is a strong belief in its genuineness.

It is carried out by means of a forked twig, hazel by traditional preference, which is grasped in the dowser's two hands and is said to be twisted upwards by an unknown force when there is water underground. As an addition it is sometimes claimed that the twig will indicate the presence of metals by being twisted downwards.

Believers in the twisting of the twig are generally ignorant that it was formerly used in the pursuit and detection of criminals and the finding of buried treasure[7]and that it was being used in the year 1918 to locate a seam of coal. Going farther afield, we learn that the witch-findings practised by African savages are sometimes carried out by means of a stick which points at the victim.

Such varied uses demand a new and complicated system of physics if the results are due to any forces external to the diviner, but my own observations satisfy me that we need not overturn our ordinary conceptions of cause and effect to explain the different properties of the divining-rod.

When a friend told me of the presence of a dowser in the neighbourhood and gave me a would-be convincing account of how he had seen him at work, how the twig was twisted upwards with such force that my informant was unable to depress it, and how the man was employed by engineers to tell them where to sink wells, I became interested and asked to see the marvel. The resulting experiment, though conducted haphazard, was instructive as regards both water-divining and credulity.

The man broke a forked twig from a bush, and, holding it in the way described later, was directed down a path leading to a tennis-court. Along this path no water was known to exist, but the twig rose twice. Beneath the tennis-court ran a water-pipe which had burst during the previous winter, and of which the position was known to six at least of those present. This pipe was located by the man, and he demonstrated it again and again by walking across it, the twig rising each time. It rose again when he was directed past a cook-house. Next he was sent along a path leading from the cook-house to the main building, and the twig rose several times. He said, 'There is water all along here', and was told that therewas a pipe running along the path. Here I intervened and asked him to try across one edge of the path, which was about six feet wide. The twig rose, and, just as on the tennis-court, he walked again and again across the indicated line, the twig rising every time, though as a fact the pipe lay on the other side of the path. He explained to us that God gave 'the gift' to Moses, and that now only one man in ten thousand received the gift.

When he left I took a twig and showed that I had the gift, or, at least, that the twig performed in my hands exactly as it had done in his. 'But', said my friends, 'he found the pipe on the tennis-court.' It mattered nothing that he had found water twice within a few yards where none was known, or that at least six of the bystanders knew of the existence of the water-pipe and were ready to show their anticipation as he approached it and their delight when he located it, nor that he located the other pipe on the wrong side of the path. The movements of the twig might be a fraud, his other finds might be failures or guesses, but his one success was enough for them. Even the Padre, when I said that the man had the face typical of a mystic, was moved to ask, 'But may not a mystic have powers of which we know nothing?'

In short, the rising of the twig was produced by the man himself, and his findings were guesses, aided by ordinary knowledge as to where water-pipes are to be expected, and more especially aided by the attitude and expression of the bystanders.

Yet by his manner he showed that he plainly believed in his own powers: otherwise his reference to the gift of God was simple blasphemy, and he seemed an earnest man.

How can we explain this belief on the one hand and the trickery on the other? First let us examine the mechanism involved in the upward twisting of the twig. Suppose you take a tough and springy forked twig, each arm of the fork being about nine or ten inches long, hold it with the apex away from you, and, with your palms facing together and your finger-tips pointing upward, place the thumb and little finger of each hand inside the fork at the places marked T and F.Now close each hand, and you have each arm of the fork firmly gripped; next, keeping your elbows well in, bend the arms of the fork outward as in Fig. 2, with your palms now looking upward. You will then find that a sort of trigger action tends to occur, and by a slight pressure of your ring-fingers against the twig you can make it rise. Still gripping firmly and pressing your hands a little together you will find it continues to rise, and by bending your hands downwards at the wrists and pressing your elbows to your side you can easily persuade an observer, and perhaps yourself, that you are trying to hold the twig down. You may even find that it leaves a pressure mark on your little finger, which you can show as evidence of how you tried to restrain it. If one arm of the fork is weaker than the other it may break, and that of course will be conclusive proof of the working of a mysterious power. So we see there is nothing very strange in the man believing that his muscular action was not responsible for the moving of the twig; but his two-sided make-up—piety on one side and trickery on the other—can best be explained by a dissociation,with repression of the knowledge of trickery as far as the main personality is concerned. We might split up his consciousness like this:—

Perhaps it is unfair to talk of trickery; he may have deceived himself from the start and never known that he was deceiving any one.

At first I pictured him as learning the trick from some one else, trying it on with his friends—maybe across a bridge over a stream—and being taken seriously, and then, when he could not escape from his reputation without owning up to the fraud, being compelled for his peace of mind to repress the deceit complex and carry on as a Dissociate. The man himself would be the last person to gain information from, for his repression, however it began, is now complete.

The discussion that followed the experiment was instructive: most of the bystanders appeared to believe in the existence of some unknown force of nature operating through a specially-gifted person, the mechanism of the twig being unnoticed and the greatest emphasis placed upon the one success. I have no doubt that in a short time the memory of that one success would be the only part of the performance not forgotten. Moreover, if any one of the bystanders had told me the story, describing fully and fairly everything he had observed, I should have been unable to criticisethe facts thus presented and denial of the miraculous would have been ineffectual; yet these bystanders were all educated and intelligent men.

With the information gained from this experiment I was able to understand the next example. The subject was mentioned in a provincial newspaper, and incidentally a story was told of how a dowser who also had the power of locating metals was able by means of the twig to indicate the position of two sovereigns concealed under a carpet, showing the relationship of water-divining to some forms of 'thought reading.' In the next number of the paper appeared 'some corroborative testimony' from a well-known local gentleman, who was also a dowser, and some of his testimony I will quote:—

'I have had twigs as thick as my little finger twist off and break after scoring my hand until it was red. The muscles of the arm become contracted when the bodily magnetism is affected by the presence of water, and a strong spring will make my arms ache badly. It is quite true that only running water affects me, and on one occasion I had a curious example of this. It was on a Saturday evening, and I quite accidentally found the presence of water close to a house where my sister was living. The following day I told her about the spring and tried the spot, when no effect was observable. On enquiry she told me that there was a pipe underneath connected with a ram which was always put out of action on Sunday.'

Further on, referring to another incident, he says:—

'I had dowsed the ground, and in addition had noted, with the help of an eminent geologist, the geologicalstrata. The dowsing satisfied me that the ground was full of water: the geological survey suggested the best place to collect it. I suppose the power must have something to do with the composition of the blood and nerve cells, but I have never yet come across a scientific explanation of the power, which is certainly possessed by many people.'

Here we have a country gentleman of indisputable honesty and intelligence attributing to unknown forces such movements and sensations as any one can produce who follows the preceding instructions, water or no water being present. The 'bodily magnetism' is a pure rationalisation and beyond discussion, but the story of the pipe and the ram is different: a ram is a pump worked by a stream of water and the noise of it is carried a long way, especially along any pipe connected with it, and if I told this gentleman that he had heard the noise of the ram he would strenuously deny the possibility, and might challenge me to test whether I could hear the noise; but I have no dissociated water-divining personality unhampered by my conscious efforts and trained to pick up such indications. It would seem incredible to him that he heard the noise of the ram on the Saturday, failed to hear it on the Sunday, deduced that the water was no longer running, and then showed this deduction by refraining from tilting up the twig; but with our knowledge of dissociation and repression, and of the working of the unconscious, we can understand all this taking place without his main stream of consciousness being aware of it.

The reference to geology is also instructive; he evidently has a knowledge of that subject, and he might perhaps admit that the indications of the twig coincided with the geological indications, though he is unaware of and cannot admit any dependence of the former on the knowledge of the latter.

Thus in both these cases the likelihood of the presence of water is only a matter of observation—skilled and minute no doubt—and the movement of the twig is in no way caused by any physical forces except those exercised by the muscles of the dowser. That the second personality of the dowser is able to deceive him is now explained, and his obvious honesty so influences non-critical observers that their credulity is no cause for wonder.

An example of water-divining without dissociation was given me by Dr. W. H. Bryce, of Fifeshire, whose words are as follows:—

'There was an old Scot who was reputed to be very skilful in finding water and who was so employed throughout his neighbourhood. He was not above using the twigs, but told me they were no use, but he judged entirely by the lie of the land. In his own language he always looked for the "rise of the metals" in looking for water. A diviner came to the neighbourhood and located water in two places. In the one place the old countryman said, "How can he get water there? Now at the top of the den where the metals rise each way he might get it." Bores were sunk at both places that the diviner indicated, but no water was got.'

This man would probably have refused such a test as locating a water-pipe, for his conclusionswere based upon conscious reasoning and he would be incapable of making guesses or picking up indications from the behaviour of bystanders; therefore in the eyes of the credulous he would be inferior to the wonder-working dowser.

One repeatedly hears stories of how the dowser has found water when geologists have failed, but the man who is sufficiently uncritical to accept the working of the twig as due to some strange 'gift' is likely to be as credulous in observation and beliefs concerning the rest of the phenomena.

'The power of suggestion' is a plausible explanation of varied phenomena. By it the feelings of a crowd are swayed, fashions are spread, mistakes are made, and beliefs are imposed upon the multitude, and in the production of hypnotic and hysterical manifestation the words 'power of suggestion' and 'personal magnetism' are sufficient explanation of all things visible and invisible.

'Personal magnetism' and its kindred phrases implying the existence of some subtle physical force are, except when used figuratively, mere incoherences, but suggestion is an undoubted cause of certain effects and we must try to understand the meaning of the word.

McDougall defines suggestion as 'a process of communication resulting in the acceptance with conviction of the communicated proposition in the absence of logical grounds for its acceptance'.[8]

Our thinking (apart from the observation of cause and effect in the small affairs of ordinary life) is generally a matter of complexes, logic being concerned only in rare cases; hence if we use theabove definition the greater part of our accepted propositions owe their acceptance to suggestion. This is true as regards most of our political, religious, and social beliefs, and, since children believe what they are taught chiefly because the teacher says so, there does not seem much opinion or knowledge of the abstract for which suggestion is not accountable.

If a suggestion agrees with the complexes already existing in the mind of the hearer then acceptance is likely to follow; this partly explains the psychology of crowds and the power of oratory, which appeals to emotions and prejudice rather than to reason. The knowledge that one's fellows believe is sufficient to convince the ordinary man, and often the existence of widespread belief is used as an argument to prove the truth of a proposition. One recognises this tendency at once in people of another race and other superstitions. An educated Chinese once assured me that blood from those nearly related would mix if dropped into a bowl of water, and drops from the veins of strangers would remain apart, and that this test was used to decide cases of disputed relationship. When I showed incredulity my friend assured me, 'It's true, quite true, every one knows it.'

Within a day or two an Englishman, whilst discussing telegony, or the influence of a first mating upon the progeny of subsequent pairings, maintained that the widespread belief among dog-breeders in the existence of this influence provedits truth, and my recollection of the argument of my Chinese friend showed me how alike are the causes of belief among all mankind.

Man tends to believe what his fellows believe and act as his fellows act, and this tendency has been erected into an instinct by Trotter, who shows how important the Herd Instinct is to all gregarious animals, including man.[9]

But if suggestion is to be made synonymous with the Herd Instinct it explains too much, and we must seek to narrow its meaning or use another word. It is already used in a somewhat special sense to account for the acceptance of propositions which an ordinary man in his ordinary state of mind would not accept, and especially is it used in relation to abnormal states such as hypnosis and hysteria.

An authoritative and confident manner makes easy the acceptance of suggestion, as every confidence-trick man knows; the writer of advertisements or political articles knows it too, but in the last example we see a new factor. The hardened Big-ender would be impervious to the most imposing suggestions from a Little-endian source, but would accept the saddest nonsense from a journal of his own party. We see here an active desire to accept propositions that accord with a powerful complex, and as complexes become more separated from the influence of reason so this desire increases.

This I shall call 'receptivity', and to the term I shall give a further meaning in the sense notonly of desiring to accept propositions but of anticipating or guessing them, of picking up hints as to what is in the minds of the other persons concerned and reflecting them as if they originated in the mind of the receiver.

In some cases of hysteria the patient presents a weak or paralysed limb, and this limb is often so insensitive that pins may be pushed through the skin without any manifestations of pain. This phenomenon, which resembles the insensitive patches that under the name of 'Devil's claws' were found upon witches when witchcraft was fashionable, has been long known as a sign of hysteria. There is now a tendency to ascribe it to suggestibility or, as I should prefer, to receptivity.

In the early stage of the disease some one examines the arm, pricks it, and asks, 'Do you feel that?' It is my experience that the patient sometimes flinches at the first prick, but answers 'No', and until this newly-implanted belief is removed he never flinches again when the limb is pricked.

The question is taken by the patient to mean that the doctor expects that the prick will not be felt—or why should he ask? The hint is accepted and the insensibility established, though its unreal nature is shown by the fact that the patient is not especially disposed to burn or injure the limb, unlike the sufferer from a true loss of sensation, who is always liable to such an accident owing to the lack of the protective sense of pain. I believe that this is the true explanation for many cases,and put it forward as a good example of receptivity.

The insensitiveness is similarly explained by Babinski,[10]who uses a different method of examination. He blindfolds the patient, who must not have been subjected to a previous test, and stimulating him variously in different places asks what he feels. This avoids the suggestion of loss of sensation, and the result is that Babinski finds few examples of such loss in cases where the 'Do you feel that?' method would produce many positive results.

It may also be explained by a dissociation of consciousness, in which the split-off stream deals with the paralysed limb and therefore the main stream of consciousness knows nothing about the prick. The difference between the two theories is not so great as appears, for the control of the supposed loss of sensation, once it is established, finds its home in a split-off stream, and the process I describe is only a stage in the dissociation.

I must admit, however, to seeing cases where a hysterical loss of voice of long duration is accompanied by a loss of sensation in the throat which is not explicable by receptivity, and it is possible for the dissociation to be directly responsible for the loss.

Jung expresses sound views when he writes:—

'It should long ago have been realised that a suggestion is only accepted by one it suits.... This pseudo-scientifictalk about suggestion is based upon the unconscious superstition that suggestion actually possesses some magic power. No one succumbs to suggestion unless from the very bottom of his heart he be willing to co-operate.'[11]

Whilst stripping suggestion of its magic I by no means deny its power. Let one person at a dinner suggest that the fish is tainted and he will generally have one or two supporters who would have eaten it without a doubt of its freshness if no one had cast suspicion upon it; or let one of a class of medical students say with sufficient assurance that he hears a murmur over a patient's heart and, even if the heart sounds are quite ordinary, others will hear it too.

There are conditions, such as fatigue or sleep, in which the effort necessary to examine the truth of a proposition seems too great, and suggestions are accepted which would be rejected in a state of fuller consciousness. For example, I was awakened one night, when a hospital resident, and told that one of my patients was very restless. I could not remember the man, but asked a few questions about him and ordered a soporific. Next morning on waking I became aware that I had no such patient, and on enquiry found that I had been mistaken for another resident whose slumbers had been undisturbed, thanks to my suggestibility, for had I been fully awake I should have repudiated any connection with the case. The confidentmanner of the messenger assisted the suggestion, and I like to think that had there been a trick intentionally played upon me even my sleepy consciousness might have detected some warning change of tone.

Psychologists regard hypnotic suggestibility as only a further stage of this sleepy non-resistance, but I see in the former a more active desire to accept. Though suggestion might be further classified according to the factors concerned in its acceptance, the class showing 'receptivity' is the important one for our consideration.

There remains auto-suggestion to be considered; it is as difficult to define as suggestion, but in the absence of any more precise term it must be accepted as indicating certain mental processes.

The sensations felt in the arms and hands by the water-diviner or table-turner are partly the result of auto-suggestion and partly of muscular contractions, themselves produced by the same cause, and some of the varied sensations of the hysteric are of similar origin. Creepy feelings at the mention of snakes, and unpleasant sensations at the thought of those 'minor horrors of war' that live in undergarments, are further examples.

As far as the persons concerned are able to judge, the sensations are often real enough, though it was long before I could believe that a confirmed hysteric who complained of a severe pain really suffered from that pain; the description of awater-diviner's sensations, given by himself and quoted in another chapter, are such that one must believe in the honesty of the writer.

One might say auto-suggestion arises from the unconscious or from a dissociated stream of consciousness, and this would make it account for hallucinations and obsessions, but here we must again take account of borderline cases. The person who feels a cold shiver at the mention of a snake cannot tell us precisely to what extent the shiver is due to conscious thoughts, or whether he feels it just because he must; and the feeling may be due to what he remembers being told about snakes, in which case it would not be due to pure auto-suggestion.

The explanation of the success of suggestion in particular cases is to be sought in the emotional state of the subject. When I was the victim, as described above, my readiness to believe arose from my being accustomed to nocturnal interruptions when my patients were in trouble and also from my reliance on the hospital staff, my emotional state being one of expectation and confidence. If to these influences are added stronger emotional forces, such as wonder or terror, acceptance of suggestion is still easier, and when people assembled together are swayed by these feelings the Herd Instinct reaches its full strength and we have the ingredients for the manufacture of a collective delusion. There are many examples of strange and supernatural occurrences vouched for by masses of observers, and I see no reasonto doubt the good faith of the historians. We all know how infectious is emotion and how hard it is for one man to remain unmoved when around him are others all under the influence of some excitement, and man always insists on finding reasons for his feelings or objects for his emotions. When wonder or terror are roused by the operation of the Herd Instinct, the individual, not knowing their origin, projects them externally and seeks an object for them. He is now ready to see or hear anything that will fit his emotions, and when an object is suggested he will speedily accept its existence as a reality.

I will give some further examples of suggestion in varying degrees of strength. During the arrival of recently wounded men at a hospital in France, I was in a ward with two eminent members of my profession and another medical officer. As one man seemed bad the sister asked me to see him at once; his left arm was paralysed, and he had a wound on the head where in the brain beneath lies the 'motor area' of the left arm. Looking at the wound, which was obscured by hair and blood, I said, 'That's pulsating'; the two consultants and the other officer agreed with my observation, and appropriate treatment was recommended. The importance of pulsation lies in the fact that it is a sign of the exposure of brain substance, which pulsates strongly, and in this case it signified the presence of a hole in the skull which allowed the pulsation to appear; but in the operating theatre shortly afterwards the skull wasfound intact, and therefore pulsation had not been present.

How did this joint error of observation arise? The combination of a gunshot wound of the head with a paralysed limb may occur in connection with a hole in the skull, and such penetrating wounds were common before the introduction of helmets. My unconscious had worked out the probabilities and led me to expect the signs of penetration; deceiving myself, by my confident manner I imposed my belief upon my colleagues, who had, I may assume, placed unjustified confidence in my reliability as an observer; and we all saw that which was not.

Another example shows how ghost stories arise: A man related to me how at the age of sixteen he was sleeping with his brother, and woke up to see a ghostly face on the wall. So far we have an ordinary half-awake hallucinatory condition, which is not uncommon; but the lad became terrified and tried to cover his head to hide the sight, when the brother woke up, and, being told of the face, promptly saw it too. The brother's evidence is strongly corroborative, not of the presence of a ghost, but of the power of suggestion when the way is prepared by strong emotion. It may be remarked that the man was one of those nervous people who fear the dark or being alone; seeing a ghost was not the cause of his condition, but resulted from the inculcation of a belief in ghosts in a person predisposed to fall a prey to his own unconscious.

The next example is a well-worn tale which has been quoted by Frank Podmore, W. H. Myers, Sir William Barrett, and probably many others. I take it from pages 62 and 63 ofHuman Personality, vol. i.[12]

It (the account) was given by Mr. Charles Lett on December 3, 1885, and reads as follows:—

'On the 5th of April, 1873, my wife's father, Captain Towns, died at his residence, Cranbrook, Rose Bay, near Sydney, New South Wales. About six weeks after his death my wife had occasion, one evening about nine o'clock, to go to one of the bedrooms in the house. She was accompanied by a young lady, Miss Britton, and as they entered the room—the gas was burning all the time—they were amazed to see, reflected as it were upon the polished surface of the wardrobe, the image of Captain Towns. It was barely half-figure, the head, shoulders, and part of the arms only showing—in fact it was like an ordinary medallion portrait, but life-size. The face appeared wan and pale, as it did before his death; he wore a kind of grey flannel jacket, in which he had been accustomed to sleep. Surprised and half alarmed at what they saw, their first idea was that a portrait had been hung in the room, and that what they saw was its reflection, but there was no picture of the kind.'Whilst they were looking and wondering, my wife's sister, Miss Towns, came into the room, and before either of the others had time to speak, she exclaimed, "Good gracious! Do you see Papa?" One of the housemaids happened to be passing downstairs at the moment and she was called in, and asked if she saw anything, and her reply was "Oh, Miss: the master." Graham—Captain Towns' old body-servant—was then sent for, and he also exclaimed, "Oh, Lord save us! Mrs. Lett, it's the Captain!" The butler was called, and then Mrs. Crane,my wife's nurse, and they both said what they saw. Finally Mrs. Towns was sent for, and, seeing the apparition, she advanced towards it ... as she passed her hand over the panel of the wardrobe the figure gradually faded away, and never again appeared.'These are the facts of the case, and they admit of no deceit; no kind of intimation was given to any of the witnesses; the same question was put to each one as they came into the room, and the reply was given without hesitation by each.'Mrs. Lett is positive that the recognition of the appearance on the part of each of the later witnesses wasindependent, and not due to any suggestion from the persons already in the room.'

'Whilst they were looking and wondering, my wife's sister, Miss Towns, came into the room, and before either of the others had time to speak, she exclaimed, "Good gracious! Do you see Papa?" One of the housemaids happened to be passing downstairs at the moment and she was called in, and asked if she saw anything, and her reply was "Oh, Miss: the master." Graham—Captain Towns' old body-servant—was then sent for, and he also exclaimed, "Oh, Lord save us! Mrs. Lett, it's the Captain!" The butler was called, and then Mrs. Crane,my wife's nurse, and they both said what they saw. Finally Mrs. Towns was sent for, and, seeing the apparition, she advanced towards it ... as she passed her hand over the panel of the wardrobe the figure gradually faded away, and never again appeared.

'These are the facts of the case, and they admit of no deceit; no kind of intimation was given to any of the witnesses; the same question was put to each one as they came into the room, and the reply was given without hesitation by each.

'Mrs. Lett is positive that the recognition of the appearance on the part of each of the later witnesses wasindependent, and not due to any suggestion from the persons already in the room.'

Then follows a statement by two of the witnesses that this account is correct.

In the lapse of twelve years between the incident and its narration a story of this nature would have been re-told many times, and we know what happens under such conditions. As the tale is given, however, it reveals more than the narrator thinks it does.

Most interesting is the denial of suggestion when we have present all the factors necessary for suggestion of the most powerful kind. Picture Miss Towns coming into the room whilst the first two were 'looking and wondering' (and not in silence, we may be sure, in spite of the words 'before either of the others had time to speak', which are interpolated to strengthen the story); she straightway experiences the same emotion as do the others and sees what they see. Now we have three emotional people, and as each new witness is brought along the emotion increasestill it would require a very self-possessed and sceptical person to resist its influence. The butler and the nurse simplyhadto see the ghost, though the account is a little ambiguous at that point.

'The same question was put to each one as they came into the room', but is it likely that under such a condition of excitement enough self-control was left to every individual to ensure that the same question,and nothing else, was put to each newcomer? Such a thing could only happen by careful pre-arrangement, which was lacking here, and the writer's insistence shows that somewhere in his mind was present the suspicion that suggestion had a hand in the production of the unanimous evidence.

Mrs. Lett is equally insistent that the recognition was not due to any suggestion from the persons already in the room, but she was unaware that suggestion can occur without intent and that the most powerful suggestion is that which is unintentional. Can we suppose that there were no signs of wonder and awe on the faces of those present, no excited exclamations, no glances towards the wardrobe, no pointing of hands: only a few calm and self-possessed people asking each newcomer if he or she saw anything? If two or three people tried by suggestion to persuade others to see a ghost they would not be able to reach the emotional state of the actors in this scene, and the intentional effort at suggestion would have a good chance of failure.

The minute account of the apparition, given by some one who was not present, and told as if it were the result of the immediate observations of the first two witnesses, has been influenced by discussion after the incident and is itself another product of suggestion. The narrator has over-shot the mark in his protest against the possibility of suggestion, and has produced a story in which the apparition is not the only improbability.

I have given this analysis because the story is quoted repeatedly by writers on the spiritualist side, and until one examines it critically it appears convincing.

The rumour of the Russian troops passing through England in September, 1914, will go down in history as a proof that mass credulity was then as powerful as ever. The rumour, however it began, was aided by the usual forces: Herd Instinct (for what every one believed was felt to be true), the desire to believe in what we wanted to happen, and the desire to be personally connected with important events. The last factor was shown by the number of people who claimed to have personal experience of the transit of the Russian reinforcements; every one had seen the troops or knew some one who had. One of my friends, a man eminent in a profession which demands clear thinking, told me that his own brother-in-law was responsible for arrangements for their railway transport.

The reader will see in this rumour a perfectexample of the working of suggestion in a case familiar to every one, and if the lesson is borne in mind a list of believers in some unnatural occurrence will not necessarily carry conviction.

The history of hypnotism is closely associated with that of charlatanry, though at some periods the practice has reached an honourable position in therapeutics. The 'temple sleep' of ancient Greek medicine was a hypnosis, but in later days hypnotism fell into oblivion till the time of Mesmer, when it was so mingled with quackery and theatrical display that some disrepute is even to this day attached to its honest use in curative medicine.

The common attitude to it is one of mistrust. Thanks to its exploitation by novelists, 'hypnotic power' is regarded as marvellous and uncanny, and the mysterious person who exercises it is able to lead his victims along any path. The fashion for public shows of Mesmerism has apparently died away, their place being taken by thought-reading performances which cater for the desire of man to believe that he is seeing a manifestation of the occult.

The 'mesmeric eye', whose pupil dilates or contracts at the will of its owner while its gaze remains fixed, has by imaginative writers been ascribed alike to Lord Kitchener and the monkRasputin, and presents a phenomenon unknown to physiologists. The 'will-power' of the hypnotist is as much a product of imagination, whilst the confident and willing co-operation of the subject is really the factor of most importance.

Nobody but a very credulous person can be hypnotised against his will, and at the beginning of the process the full co-operation of the subject is necessary, though with repeated sittings his suggestibility becomes increased and to that extent his 'will-power' may be said to have diminished.

In the induction of hypnosis the essentials are quiet surroundings and confidence of success on the part of both operator and subject. The subject is then led to think only of the operator and his remarks and directions, whilst generally some mechanical method is used which by tiring the eyes produces a feeling of sleepiness. Success varies according to the skill and confidence of the operator and their persuasive effect on the subject.

Several sittings may be necessary before any depth of hypnosis is obtained. If the result is successful the stream of consciousness is thinned out and its place is taken by other thoughts and suggestions supplied by the operator. In light hypnosis there is produced a condition in which suggestions concerning, say, the cessation of bad habits or modes of thought are more readily accepted than in the normal state of consciousness, the subject having afterwards a complete memory of the sitting. In deeper stages hypnotic sleep isproduced, suggestions concerning the bodily functions—producing, for example, temporary rigidity or paralysis or loss of feeling—may take effect, and the memory of the sitting may not be recalled afterwards; the subject may carry out various movements by direction of the operator, and may believe what his senses should contradict. In this deeper stage he is in a condition to receive suggestions as to actions to be performed after the hypnotic state has ceased.

The explanation of the increased suggestibility of the hypnotic subject lies in the abolition, total or partial, of his stream of consciousness. Such critical powers as he possesses are suspended and he has no standard by which to judge assertions presented to him, like a man in a dream who through a similar absence of standards of comparison sees no absurdity in the suspension of the laws of gravity. The unconscious of the subject is now accessible to suggestions which may be planted there and will bear fruit even if the subject is unaware of them. It is an experimental commonplace for a subject, told in a hypnotic state to perform a simple but unnecessary action after waking, to invent a rationalisation to account for doing it, whilst having no suspicion that he does it as a result of suggestion.

But throughout all the stages he still has a volition of his own and will do nothing that seriously conflicts with his well-rooted ideas of conduct. If he is persuaded that an imaginary some one is sitting in a chair, and is directed tostab him with an imaginary knife, he will perhaps do so, for he would not object to doing so in his waking state; but suggest to him that he should steal a real watch, and if he be a man of ordinary honesty he will find reasons for not stealing it, though perhaps the man of criminal tendencies would fall to the suggestion.

A story in illustration of this resistance was told me by a doctor who practised hypnotism for the cure of the alcohol habit. Having successfully suggested to a patient that whisky would produce nausea, he congratulated himself on a cure, but to his annoyance the patient came home one day cheerfully intoxicated with beer. Further hypnosis was tried and, although the hypnotic state was induced as before, suggestion had no further effect on the drinking habit. It turned out that the patient had decided not to be cured of the beer habit, hence the failure.

In hypnosis we have another example of dissociation; during the process of induction the stream of consciousness is thinned out or completely abolished according to the depth of hypnosis. The fact that there may or may not be during the waking state a recollection of the events in a previous hypnosis shows that the dissociation may be continuous or abrupt (see Chapter IV). The substituted stream is made up of suggestions from the operator and of material from the unconscious, for the hypnosis may be used to revive memories that have been lost to the consciousness through repression. In this last usewe see a relation to automatic writing and other methods of bringing to light the contents of the unconscious.

In my account of the water-diviner I suggested that his dissociated stream was especially trained to pick up indications that are not observed by his ordinary self. The study of the hypnotic state shows that our senses sometimes work better when freed from the control of the consciousness, so that the subject is able to see or hear or feel what is unobserved by the ordinary man. He possesses a hyperæsthesia such as we see in a sleeping dog who wakes at the approach of a footstep inaudible to the human ear and recognises whether it belongs to friend or stranger. A similar alertness and its opposite can be seen at work in ordinary sleep. The mother is roused by the slightest whimper of her babe, whilst louder noises pass unheard; but the person who, with the best intention of breaking a bad habit, has an alarm clock by his bedside, may neglect its call for a few mornings and end by entirely failing to hear it.

The hyperæsthesia belonging to the unconscious is shown in other conditions than hypnosis and ordinary sleep. Jung quotes experiments[13]of Binet, who says: 'According to the calculations I have been able to make, the unconscious sensitiveness of a hysteric is on some occasions fifty times more acute than that of a normal person.'

Dr. Hurst, writing on War Neuroses,[14]says: 'Inone severe case true hyperacusis was present, and Captain E. A. Peters estimated that the patient heard sixteen times more acutely than the average normal individual. It was possible to carry on a conversation with him by whispering in one corner of the ward when he was lying in the opposite corner, although men with normal hearing who were standing half-way between in the centre of the room could not hear a word of what was whispered.'

I myself knew a war-strained patient who, as a result of terrifying experiences, had a dread of aeroplanes and could not only hear a plane long before his comrades but could tell at once by the hum of the engine whether it was British or German. In other respects his hearing was no better than his neighbour's.

Another case under my observation was that of a nervous lady with a fear of draughts. Whilst secluded in her bedroom she claimed to be affected when far-away doors were open, and showed a most uncanny and accurate knowledge as to whether they were open or shut, though this knowledge was probably derived from the sense of hearing and not from any sensitivity to heat or cold.

The word 'hyperæsthesia' is used to denote an excessive acuity of our senses. The examples quoted above refer to the sense of hearing; but other senses, such as touch and sight, may be similarly sharpened. Binet's experiments were carried out on the sense of touch.

There is no question here of the development of any new sense; the hyperæsthesia is only an exaggeration of the senses we already possess. Its importance lies in its common alliance with a dissociated receptivity which may lead it to be overlooked and cause its results to be ascribed to something else.

The mystery of dreams and their interpretation has occupied men's thoughts in all ages. The Jews paid great attention to them, as the Old Testament shows, and there is evidence that the prophet Daniel had a shrewd knowledge, based upon psychological facts, concerning dream meanings.

There are probably 'Dream Books' still sold which purport to provide interpretations for the enquiring dreamer, but it is only in recent years that the scientific study of dreams has produced useful results.

Freud laid the foundations of our modern knowledge, but unfortunately certain parts of his theories have raised so much antagonism that the sound work he has done is still scorned and dream interpretation is regarded as fanciful; nevertheless I propose to show that in dreams we have a key to the unconscious of the dreamer.

Before attempting an explanation of dreams we must first consider sleep, which is an interruption of consciousness, so that whatever mind work is carried on in sleep is a product of dissociation. The interruption of consciousness is more or lesscomplete, the light sleeper reacting to external stimuli, turning away from a touch or making movements to protect himself from heat or cold, whilst the heavy sleeper fails to react to these minor disturbances. The memory of occurrences in the outside world during sleep may be vaguely present in the waking stage, and some sleepers will answer questions or obey orders without waking and have little or no recollection of them afterwards. Such observations point to a resemblance between sleep and that form of dissociation called hypnosis.

In hypnosis the memories and emotions in the unconscious may be brought to the surface, and in sleep the unconscious, escaping from the control of the consciousness, sends up thoughts and feelings which manifest themselves in dreams. How far external stimuli cause or influence dreams is uncertain, but the more one investigates the less importance does one attach to physical stimuli.

The dreams of adults are concerned largely with what I have described in a previous chapter as repressions. These repressions are buried in the unconscious, and their efforts to come into consciousness cause our apparently senseless and fantastic dreams. If we dreamed distinctly about these forgotten episodes, and remembered the dream on waking, they would come into consciousness and be recognised, but, being buried and refused admission to the wide-awake world, before entering consciousness they are so distortedas to be unrecognisable. To the mechanism that holds them down or distorts them is given the name of the 'censor', and the interpreter of dreams must seek to evade the censor and resolve the distorted story into its proper elements.

This method is of value in that treatment of the war-strained soldier which aims at making him face his memories and grow accustomed to them, for if a memory is repressed it tends to appear in the sufferer's dreams, which give an opportunity for its recovery by dream analysis. The opponents of this method picture the analyst, armed with a dictionary of dream meanings, listening to a patient's account of a dream, then giving him an explanation and persuading him to believe it; but, though a shrewd guess may often be made as to the meaning of a dream, the interpretation, to be of any value, must come from the patient. He is made to close his eyes and, visualising the dream, to describe it carefully. If it is a terrifying dream the telling of it will reproduce the feeling of terror, and appropriate questions will recall the occasion on which the same feeling first occurred. If the real incident is recalled there is an emotional outbreak which often startles the observer, who has the satisfaction of knowing that the greater the outbreak the greater will be the benefit.

Here is an example of the practical use of a dream: The patient had lost all memory of his experience in France, and this loss spread to his life before the war so that he failed to recall evenhis former employment; he slept badly and had terrifying dreams, one of which was as follows:—

'I was on a pleasure steamer with a lot of cheerful people; it went to sea and then entered a dark cavern. On the floor of the cavern were broken skeletons, and at the far end of the cavern was a hole with light showing through. Two pirates with cocked hats came and led seven of us up the cavern, where we saw some old men with whiskers. The pirates were quite kind and led us through another hole into a small cavern; the wall of the cavern began to fall down, so I picked up a broken sword and began to bore into the wall. Then something like a ball of fire came at me, and I woke up frightened.'

Though the reader could probably guess what the dream was about yet the man had no idea of the meaning, for the censor was still at work. He was made to close his eyes and visualise the ball of fire till he became frightened again, so frightened, indeed, that he was in a state of dissociation, his stream of consciousness being filled by the feeling of terror and only in relation to the outside world by means of the voice of the questioner. (The fact that memories restored by this method are often forgotten again as soon as the patient opens his eyes is proof of a dissociation.) At this stage he was told, 'You felt like that in France, what was it?' The normal stream of consciousness being cut off, the censor was now out of action, and the man, putting his hands to his head, cried, 'It's a Minnewerfer', and when he became calmer told of a dug-out being blown in and several of his mates being killed. Then he was taken over the dream andmade to look at the various parts and tell what they 'turned to'. The pleasure steamer was the boat in which he went to France, the cheery people on board being other soldiers; he now recognised the place from which the boat started and the port where he landed. The cavern was a tunnel up which a captain and a sergeant-major (the pirates) had led seven men; the cocked hats resolved into the sergeant-major having a piece torn from the cloth cover of his helmet which flapped in the wind; the broken skeletons were the bodies of his slain comrades; the second cavern was the dug-out; the broken sword a bayonet which broke when he tried to dig his way out with it; the old men were German prisoners, and the ball of fire was the flash of the explosion.

All this was explained by the patient. If he had been told the probable meaning of the dream he might have believed it; but the result would have been valueless—it was necessary that he should bring up the memories himself. The dream is unusually coherent, but serves as a good example of the modern methods of dream interpretation.

Half-conscious fears or desires are often represented by symbolisms apparent to the analyst but unrecognised by the dreamer. A man told me of a dream in which he met some one whom he had defeated in a business disagreement, and, to his surprise, he shook hands with his old opponent. I told him that he felt the pricking of conscience and was desirous of making amends.This was little more than a guess, but its truth was admitted though the dreamer said that he had hardly realised his feelings before. It is characteristic of dreams, as of the slips of the tongue discussed in Chapter I, that there is an obstacle to the dreamer's unaided understanding of them. A simple dream of my own will illustrate this: When going upstairs at a seaside hotel my wife, noticing a stuffed bird, said to me, 'Is that a sea-gull?' and I answered 'Yes'. The next morning I remembered a dream for which I could trace no cause, and said to my wife, 'I wonder why I dreamed of my old schoolmaster last night?' At this she asked, 'Which one?' and when I answered, 'Mr. Gull', the connection at once became obvious, though something had prevented my seeing the obvious without aid.

Since a dream is a product of dissociation, we expect to find in it the same qualities that belong to the product of other dissociations. The world of the dream is pictured as something external to the dreamer and not arising from his own mind, just as the revelations of automatic writing or the movements of the divining-rod are accepted as coming from some one or something other than the agent.

The dream taps the unconscious, the stories about poets and musicians who rise in the night-watches to pen their elusive inspirations being paralleled by the poetic imagery in the automatic writings of the Glastonbury archæologists.

Lost memories appear in the dream and thedreamer may deny the incidents, as mentioned in Chapter III. In the same way the apparently honest medium may produce a memory, more or less distorted, as a revelation, and deny that it is a memory.

The dissociated stream is hypersensitive and makes use of hints and fears that have passed unperceived by the consciousness. This use accounts for prophetic dreams, which are, like intuitions, the result of unconscious processes. In my own experience I have known but two circumstantial accounts of dream prophecies which were claimed to be fulfilled: One concerned a railway accident, and the other the destruction by fire of a distant house. Both the dreamers, who were of the male sex, had suffered from gross hysterical manifestations, or, in other words, had been woefully led astray by the unconscious concerning something other than prophecy. Accounts of prophetic dreams must always be suspect because of their origin in the unconscious and the inability of the dreamer either to interpret them or trace their origin. It is to be noted that psychologists who work at dream analysis make no mention of dream prophecies, although the fact that 'the wish is father to the thought' explains why a dream sometimes expresses an unconscious desire that later attains fulfilment in reality.

The Biblical account of Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the idol with feet of clay bears the stamp of genuine history. The king, like the neurotic sufferer of to-day, 'dreamed dreams, wherewithhis spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him.' The magicians, called upon to interpret, asked that the king should first tell his dream; but the king answered, 'The thing is gone from me; if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces and your houses shall be made a dunghill.' The magicians and astrologers, the sorcerers and the Chaldeans, failed, but the prophet Daniel took up the task and told the king his forgotten dream. We can only imagine his method, but it is possible to revive a dream by using the emotion felt on waking, and such a method, or even direct hypnosis, may have been available to Daniel; and if we regard the interpretation, not as prophetic, but as revealing to the king his forebodings of future disaster, then the chapter accords with modern conceptions of dream analysis. Nebuchadnezzar was already a psycho-neurotic on the borderline of insanity, as his subsequent history shows, and would easily come to rely upon and reward a psychologist like Daniel, who convincingly laid bare to him the working of his unconscious. By tradition the old civilisations of the East were the sources of occult knowledge, and this view of a scrap of Old Testament history gives a hint how the tradition arose. If there existed an esoteric knowledge of psychological technique such as I ascribe to Daniel, then its possessors would easily obtain reputations for more than worldly wisdom.

The word 'hysteria', like 'lunacy', is evidence of a belief now discarded. When the theory of demoniacal possession ceased to satisfy the desire for reasons, and material explanations were sought for certain conditions, it was supposed that the uterus (Greek,hystera) came adrift from its position and wandered about the body, producing the condition thenceforward known as hysteria. Advancing knowledge killed this theory, but the influence of the word remained and the disease was attributed to some derangement or irritation of the uterus and its associated organs. Charcot, of Paris, showed the mental origin of hysteria, but, becoming lost in a maze of hypnotism and suggestion, he described as symptoms of the disease various manifestations which were really called up by himself or his assistants. There are medical men who still insist on a bodily cause, but such causes serve merely as pegs on which to hang the symptoms.

As usual, I shrink from a definition, but in this case I have good reason. Every writer who describes hysteria expresses his own ideas about it, and as the ideas of no two writers are alikesome definitions scarcely seem to refer to the same subject.

Here is a definition by Babinski, a French writer of international reputation:—

'Hysteria is a peculiar psychical state capable of giving rise to certain conditions which have features of their own. It manifests itself in primary and secondary symptoms. The former can be exactly reproduced by suggestion in certain subjects and can be made to disappear under the sole influence of suggestion.'

And here is one by Pierre Janet, a man of equal eminence:—

'Hysteria is a form of mental depression characterised by retraction of the field of personal consciousness, and a tendency to complete division of the personality, and subconscious mental conditions grow and form a kind of second personality.'

And here are a few words from Ernest Jones, the chief exponent of Freud's views in this country:—

'It is in the excessive tendency to displace affects by means of superficial associations that the final key to the explanation of abnormal suggestion is to be sought. Even if it were true, which it certainly is not, that most hysterical symptoms are the product of verbal suggestion, the observation would be of hardly any practical or theoretical interest.'

When the reader has finished this chapter he will perhaps return to these definitions, and see how each represents one aspect, and how the best understanding is reached by a consideration of all of them.

The Great War has provided plenty of material for the study of hysteria, and French and German writers have dealt extensively with it. The paucity of English writings on the subject may indicate a smaller amount of material, but there has been sufficient considerably to increase our knowledge. The common form of hysteria is a mimicry of bodily disease; pains, paralyses, contractions and joint affections most often occur, though fits and trances are typical and there are few diseases which are not imitated. Hysteria therefore has a superficial resemblance to malingering, or the conscious simulation of disease for a definite end, and many people find it hard to conceive any difference between the two. Various criteria have been given to distinguish them, but, in my opinion, when the question arises the distinction can rarely be made upon physical grounds and is chiefly a matter of judgement concerning the honesty of the patient; that is to say, the hysteric believes in his disease as a reality, but the malingerer knows that it is fictitious. I believe there is no definite line between the groups, though some authorities assert that they are quite distinct. Practical experience proves that in many cases there is an intense desire for cure which cannot be reconciled with any consciousness of simulation, and the apparently heartfelt gratitude often shown by the patient on recovery is further proof of the reality of this desire.

It is a matter for regret that we have no word to take the place of 'hysteria', which is a markof superstition; the only excuse for its use being that every one knows that it does not mean what it says. Popular and even professional ideas concerning hysteria are so far from the truth that it is a pity a new word is not employed. If a man has fought bravely for years and at last succumbed in his effort to forget the horrors he has seen, it sounds an insult to say he is suffering from hysteria. Yet the newer term of 'shell-shock' was worse, for it conveyed a totally false idea of causation and treatment: to regard as due to the concussion of a shell symptoms which are of purely mental origin led to muddled thinking.

A common history in these cases was that the man became 'unconscious' after a shell explosion, and on returning to consciousness found himself mute, shaky, or paralysed. These facts led to the belief that the condition was actually due to the physical effect of an explosion, 'shell-shock' and 'concussion' being regarded as almost synonymous. But the same symptoms occurred when there was no question of concussion, whilst the recoveries, often sensationally reported in the press, after accidental or deliberate stimuli of various kinds were on all fours with the cures wrought by Christian Science or the pilgrimage to Lourdes. Hence the hysterical nature of the symptoms became evident and the concussion theory faded away.

When one of these patients is encouraged to talk he often tells how he had felt himself overpowered by the horrors of his surroundings andforced to make increased efforts to keep going and avoid showing his condition to his fellows—in other words, to repress his emotions. The strain continuing, the shell-burst proved the last straw, and his repressed feelings broke into consciousness and took possession of it; this is what the man called being 'unconscious', but the condition is really an abrupt dissociation. In course of time—hours, days, or even weeks—he comes to himself again, and once more his feelings are buried; but now he is a hysteric, and his buried feelings—his dissociated stream—produce and maintain his symptoms.

In whatever way the hysteria arises the developed symptoms are the result of a mental activity which is powerful enough to overcome for a long time the desire for recovery. There are two streams of thought—the one desirous of cure and the other engaged in keeping up the symptoms—and we recognise an extreme example of continuous dissociation, in which the main stream is not only unaware of the existence of the other and unable to control it, but in which the results produced by the dissociated stream are antagonistic to the desires of the main personality.

This conception accords fairly well with Janet's definition as given above, but though it gives us a description of the disease and indicates its relation to other phenomena we have yet to understand why the dissociation occurs. This is a difficult problem, and one to which several answers can be given. I have suggested one above, andFreud supplies another, which he applies not only to hysteria but to allied nervous conditions. What follows is not an exposition of his ideas, but rather my interpretation of such as are acceptable and useful to me. A complex, which according to Freud usually centres around an infantile sexual desire, is repugnant to the consciousness and becomes repressed as a result of conflict in just the same way as a memory is repressed. The complex is kept thrust down in the unconscious, but always tends to produce effects; it may do so in dreams or may obtain symbolic representation in the form of a neurosis, especially in times of stress. Besides the primary aim of expressing repression by a symbolic representation, Freud admits a 'secondary function' of the neurosis by which the patient may derive some advantage from the disease.

Here is a case capable of explanation by the Freudian hypothesis: A man said he had fallen on to the blade of an aeroplane propeller and bruised his neck; he complained of severe pain in one side of his neck, with twitching of the arm on the same side, which continued for months. It was found that the patient, who was apprenticed to engineering, had such a deep-seated fear of making mistakes that he had sometimes stayed at the workshop for hours after the day's work was over in order to familiarise himself with the use of tools; but in spite of this his fear increased, until the handling of a file or spanner produced feelings of anxiety. Then he joined the army.Being put to work at aeroplanes he tried to do his duty and succeeded so far as to be made a corporal, saying never a word about his fears and banishing them as far as possible from his thoughts. At last the repression broke forth and took symbolic form in pain, the expression of his fear of the machinery which was blamed as its material cause. No account can picture the emotion produced by the recall of this complex, and it was evident that his feelings were intense and of more importance to him than one unfamiliar with such cases would suppose. His pains ceased when the cause had been revealed, and, what is very important, when he was told that he could not be expected to work at machinery. It must be added that the out-and-out Freudian would not be satisfied with this explanation; he would trace the cause of the original fear of making mistakes, and would expect to find it in some repression of infantile desires or fears. Certainly I have a feeling that the case had only been half investigated, but it will serve as a simple example of symbolic representation.

The 'secondary function' of this neurosis is plain: the patient succeeded in keeping away from machinery all the time the pain lasted, and his anxiety symptoms were powerful enough to lead to his removal to another kind of work.

This leads on to Adler's theory,[15]which, like Freud's, is based upon conflict and repression, but regards the hysteria as derived from the'Will to Power'. The potential neurotic has a feeling of inferiority combined with a desire to be master of his own fate, and, since direct attainment of this desire is impossible, the end is striven for by a fantasy or fiction produced by the unconscious. This view, thus baldly put, shows a relation between hysteria and malingering, and, returning to the case of the prentice engineer, we can see his work in the shop becoming more and more distasteful whilst his anxiety tended to become a means of escape; then in the army the neurosis took a more determined form which might be confounded with malingering by an observer who assumed that all actions were the result of conscious motives.

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