ched
the Unconscious Self alone; and other remarks reached the subject--awake
or somnambulic--in the ordinary way. The next step was to test the
intelligence of this hidden "slave of the lamp," if I may so term
it--this sub-conscious and indifferent executor of all that was bidden.
How far was its attention alert? How far was it capable of reasoning and
judgment? M. Janet began with a simple experiment. "When I shall have
clapped my hands together twelve times," he said to the entranced
subject before awakening her, "you will go to sleep again." There was no
sign that the sleeper understood or heard; and when she was awakened the
events of the trance were a blank to her as usual. She began talking to
other persons. M. Janet, at some little distance, clapped his hands
feebly together five times. Seeing that she did not seem to be attending
to him, he went up to her and said, "Did you hear what I did just now?"
"No; what?" "Do you hear this?" and he clapped his hands once more.
"Yes, you clapped your hands." "How often?" "Once." M. Janet again
withdrew and clapped his hands six times gently, with pauses between the
claps. Lucie paid no apparent attention, but when the sixth clap of this
second series--making the twelfth altogether--was reached, she fell
instantly into the trance again. It seemed, then, that the "slave of the
lamp" had counted the claps through all, and had obeyed the order much
as a clock strikes after a certain number of swings of the pendulum,
however often you stop it between hour and hour.

Thus far, the knowledge gained as to the unconscious element in Lucie
was not direct, but inferential. The nature of the command which it
could execute showed it to be capable of attention and memory; but there
was no way of learning its own conception of itself, if such existed, or
of determining its relation to other phenomena of Lucie's trance. And
here it was that automatic writing was successfully invoked; here we
have, as I may say, the first fruits in France of the new attention
directed to this seldom-trodden field. M. Janet began by the following
simple command: "When I clap my hands you will write Bonjour." This was
done in the usual scrawling script of automatism, and Lucie, though
fully awake, was not aware that she had written anything at all.

M. Janet simply ordered the entranced girl to write answers to all
questions of his after her waking. The command thus given had a
persistent effect, and while