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The Eighth Lesson: The Highlands and Lowlands of Mind.607
sextant, and the compass, and the captain—no perception of the lookout
on the mast—of the distant horizon. With no vision of objects far ahead—
dangers to be avoided—destinations to be reached—other ships to be
spoken to by means other than by bodily contact—a region of sunshine
and cloud, of space, or perception, and of intelligence utterly inaccessible
to parts below the waterline.”
We ask our students to read carefully the above expression of Sir Oliver
Lodge, for it gives one of the clearest and most accurate figures of the actual
state of affairs concerning the mental planes that we have seen in Western
writings.
And other Western writers have noted and spoken of these out-ofconscious
realms. Lewes has said: “It is very certain that in every conscious
volition—every act that is so characterized—the larger part of it is quite
unconscious. It is equally certain that in every perception there are
unconscious processes of reproduction and inference. There is a middle
distance of sub-consciousness, and a background of unconsciousness.”
Taine has told us that: “Mental events imperceptible to consciousness are
far more numerous than the others, and of the world that makes up our being
we only perceive the highest points—the lighted-up peaks of a continent
whose lower levels remain in the shade. Beneath ordinary sensations are
their components, that is to say, the elementary sensations, which must be
combined into groups to reach our consciousness.”
Maudsley says: “Examine closely and without bias the ordinary mental
operations of daily life, and you will find that consciousness has not onetenth
part of the function therein which it is commonly assumed to have. In
every conscious state there are at work conscious, sub-conscious, and infraconscious
energies, the last as indispensable as the first.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “There are thoughts that never emerge into
consciousness, which yet make their influence felt among the perceptible
mental currents, just as the unseen planets sway the movements of those
that are watched and mapped by the astronomer.”