Inspiration, during the waking state, seems the clearest manifestation of the subconscious in the domain of intellectual creation. In its most pronounced form, it would seem to come very close to somnambulism. Certain attitudes of Socrates (according to Aulus Gellius), of Diderot, of Blake, of Shelley and of Balzac, give force to this opinion. Doctor Régis[7] says that almost all men of genius have been "waking sleepers" butt the waking sleeper is not infrequently an "absent-minded" individual--one whose mind tends to become concentrated upon a problem. Thus the excess and the absence of psychological consciousness would seem, in certain cases, to manifest themselves by identical phenomena. Of what did Socrates think days when he remained motionless? Did he think? Was he conscious of his thought? Do the fakirs think? And Beethoven, when, hatless and coatless, he let himself be arrested as a tramp? Was he under voluntary obsession, or in a quasi-somnambulistic condition? Did he know what he was pondering so deeply, or was his cerebral activity unconscious? John Stuart Mill composed his work on logic in the streets of London, as he went daily from his house to the offices of the India Company. Will anyone believe that this work was not planned in a state of perfect consciousness? What was subconscious in Mill, says M. Chabaneix, was the effort to make his way in a crowded street. "There was here automatism of the inferior centres." This reversal of terms--more frequent than certain psychologists have believed--may suggest doubts as to the true nature of inspiration. One ought at least to ascertain whether, from the moment when the realization--even purely cerebral--of a work begins, it is possible for this effort to remain wholly subconscious. Mozart's letter explains nobody but Mozart: "When I feel well and am in a good humour, whether riding in a carriage or taking a walk after a hearty meal, or at night when I cannot sleep, thoughts come thronging to me, and without the slightest effort. Where do they come from, and by what avenue do they reach me? I know nothing about it, have nothing to do with it. I keep in my head those that please me, and hum them--at least, so others have told me. Once I have my air, another soon comes to join it. The work grows, I hear it continually and get it more and more distinct, till at last the composition is entirely completed in my head, though it may be a long one.... All this takes place in me as in a beautiful, distinct dream.... If I start to write afterwards, I have nothing to do but to take out of the sack of my brain what has previously accumulated there, as I have explained to you. Thus it takes scarcely any time at all to put the whole thing on paper. Everything is already in perfect shape, and my score seldom differs very much from what I had in my head beforehand. It does not bother me to be interrupted while I am writing...."[8] With Mozart, the whole process is, therefore,