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The Eighth Lesson: The Highlands and Lowlands of Mind.613
Bascom says: “It is inexplicable how premises which lie below consciousness
can sustain conclusions in consciousness; how the mind can wittingly take up
a mental movement at an advanced stage, having missed its primary steps.”
Hamilton and other writers have compared the mind’s action to that of
a row of billiard balls, of which one is struck and the impetus transmitted
throughout the entire row, the result being that only the last ball actually
moves, the others remaining in their places. The last ball represents the
conscious thought—the other stages in the unconscious mentation. Lewes,
speaking of this illustration, says: “Something like this, Hamilton says, seems
often to occur in a train of thought, one idea immediately suggesting
another into consciousness—this suggestion passing through one or more
ideas which do not themselves rise into consciousness. This point, that we
are not conscious of the formation of groups, but only of a formed group,
may throw light on the existence of unconscious judgments, unconscious
reasonings, and unconscious registrations of experience.”
Many writers have related the process by which the unconscious
mentation emerges gradually into the field of consciousness, and the
discomfort attending the process. A few examples may prove interesting
and instructive.
Maudsley says: “It is surprising how uncomfortable a person may be made
by the obscure idea of something which he ought to have said or done, and
which he cannot for the life of him remember. There is an effort of the lost
idea to get into consciousness, which is relieved directly the idea bursts into
consciousness.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “There are thoughts that never emerge
into consciousness, and which yet make their influence felt among the
perceptive mental currents, just as the unseen planets sway the movements
of the known ones.” The same writer also remarks: “I was told of a business
man in Boston who had given up thinking of an important question as too
much for him. But he continued so uneasy in his brain that he feared he was