The Catholic World, Vol. 18, October, 1873, to March, 1874.: A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and ScienceVarious
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 18, October, 1873, to March, 1874.: A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
1st. Unconscious cerebration expressing itself in unconscious muscular
action. 2d. Psychic force. 3d. Spirits. I would remark that the first
and second agree, in so far as they make the source of the phenomena
internal; they differ in that the first would make them the result
of a known law, the action of which had been previously detected,
whilst the second supposes a previously unknown law or force of which
spiritualistic phenomena are the sole evidence.
I.
The doctrine of unconscious cerebration is thus expressed by Dr.
Carpenter (_Rep._, p. 272): "Ideational changes take place in the
cerebrum, of which we may be at the time unconscious for want of
receptivity on the part of the sensorium, but of which the results
may at a subsequent period present themselves to the consciousness,
as ideas elaborated by an automatic process of which we have no
cognizance." Dr. Carpenter's ground for "surmising" that "ideational
changes" may be received unconsciously, and subsequently recognized,
and that the consciousness or unconsciousness of the reception depends
upon their being presented or not in the sensorium, is the following
analogy: The cerebrum, "or rather its ganglionic matter in which
its potentiality resides," stands in precisely the same anatomical
relation to the sensorium that the retina does; but visual changes
may be unconsciously received in the retina when the sensorium is
inoperative, and may be subsequently recognized. The reality of this
automatic reception and elaboration of ideas is confirmed by the
phenomena of somnambulism, which show "that long trains of thought may,
with a complete suspension of the directing and controlling power of
the will, follow the lead either of some dominant idea or of suggestion
from without." This doctrine, when applied to explain the intelligent
manifestations of spiritualism, comes to this, that you cannot argue,
from the fact that a man informs you truly of something which he could
not possibly have learned elsewhere, and which you know you were
never aware of in the ordinary sense of the word, that he is informed
by a superior intelligence; for you may have received unconsciously
into your cerebrum the information in question, or have unconsciously
elaborated it from premises so received, and may have communicated it
to your informant by unconscious muscular action.
I must do Dr. Carpenter the justice to admit that he nowhere, so
far as I have seen, attempts to apply his doctrine in detail to the
higher phenomena of spiritualism. He is contented with stating it
as indicating the direction in which a solution of such phenomenal
difficulties as do not seem to him wholly incredible is to be looked
for.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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