In the first place it is to be noticed that a person who has passed into a state of abnormal consciousness, or who is in the habit of doing so, can have no knowledge of the fact in his normal condition except from the information of others. The boy at Norwood might be told of what he had said and done while in his less usual condition, but so far as any experience of his own was concerned, he might during all that time have been in a profound sleep. Similarly of all the other cases. So that we have here the singular circumstance to consider, that a person may have to depend on the information of others respecting his own behaviour--not during sleep or mental aberration or ordinary absence of mind--but (in some cases at least) while in possession of all his faculties and unquestionably responsible for his actions. Not only might a person find himself thus held responsible for actions of which he had no knowledge, and perhaps undeservedly blamed or condemned, but he might find himself regarded as untruthful because of his perfectly honest denial of all knowledge of the conduct attributed to him. If such cases were common, again, it would not improbably happen that the simulation of dual consciousness would become a frequent means of attempting to evade responsibility. Another curious point to be noticed is this. Supposing one subject to alternations of consciousness were told that in his abnormal condition he suffered intense pain or mental anguish in consequence of particular actions during his normal state, how far would he be influenced to refrain from such actions by the fear of causing pain or sorrow to his 'double,' a being of whose pains and sorrows, nay, of whose very existence, he was unconscious? In ordinary life a man refrains from particular actions which have been followed by unpleasant consequences, reasoning, in some cases, 'I will not do so-and-so, because I suffered on such and such occasions when I did so' (we set religious considerations entirely on one side by assuming that the particular actions are not contrary to any moral law), in others, 'I will not do so-and-so because my so doing on former occasions has caused trouble to my friend A or B:' but it is strange to imagine any one reasoning, 'I will not do so-and-so because my so doing on former occasions has caused my second self to experience pain and anguish, of which I myself have not the slightest recollection.' A man may care for his own well-being, or be unwilling to bring trouble on his friends, but who is that second self that his troubles should excite the sympathy of his fellow-consciousness? The considerations here touched on are not so entirely beyond ordinary experience as might be supposed. It may happen to any man to have occasion to enter into an apparently unconscious condition during which in reality severe pains may be suffered by another self, though on his return to his ordinary condition no recollection of those pains may remain, and though to all