The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)James, William
Philosophy
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
The usual way in which doctors measure the delicacy of our touch is by
the compass-points. Two points are normally felt as one whenever they
are too close together for discrimination; but what is 'too close' on
one part of the skin may seem very far apart on another. In the middle
of the back or on the thigh, less than 3 inches may be too close;
on the finger-tip a tenth of an inch is far enough apart. Now, as
tested in this way, with the appeal made to the primary consciousness,
which talks through the mouth and seems to hold the field alone, a
certain person's skin may be entirely anæsthetic and not feel the
compass-points at all; and yet this same skin will prove to have a
perfectly normal sensibility if the appeal be made to that other
secondary or sub-consciousness, which expresses itself automatically by
writing or by movements of the hand. M. Binet, M. Pierre Janet, and M.
Jules Janet have all found this. The subject, whenever touched, would
signify 'one point' or 'two points,' as accurately as if she were a
normal person. She would signify it only by these movements; and of the
movements themselves her primary self would be as unconscious as of the
facts they signified, for what the submerged consciousness makes the
hand do automatically is unknown to the consciousness which uses the
mouth.
Messrs. Bernheim and Pitres have also proved, by observations too
complicated to be given in this spot, that the hysterical blindness
is no real blindness at all. The eye of an hysteric which is totally
blind when the other or seeing eye is shut, will do its share of vision
perfectly well when _both_ eyes are open together. But even where both
eyes are semi-blind from hysterical disease, the method of automatic
writing proves that their perceptions exist, only cut off from
communication with the upper consciousness. M. Binet has found the hand
of his patients unconsciously writing down words which their eyes were
vainly endeavoring to 'see,' i.e., to bring to the upper consciousness.
Their submerged consciousness was of course seeing them, or the hand
could not have written as it did. Colors are similarly perceived by
the sub-conscious self, which the hysterically color-blind eyes cannot
bring to the normal consciousness. Pricks, burns, and pinches on the
anæsthetic skin, all unnoticed by the upper self, are recollected to
have been suffered, and complained of, as soon as the under self gets
a chance to express itself by the passage of the subject into hypnotic
trance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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