sed by mind. It is not the intellect, however,
which does this work, but the Unconscious. The intellect still stands
aghast before the problem of the human body, lost like Pascal in the
profundities of analysis, each discovery only revealing new depths of
mystery. But the Unconscious seems to be familiar with it in every
detail.

It may be added that the Unconscious never sleeps; during the sleep of
the conscious it seems to be more vigilant than during our waking hours.

In comparison with these, the powers of the conscious mind seem almost
insignificant. Derived from the Unconscious during the process of
evolution, the conscious is, as it were, the antechamber where the
crude energies of the Unconscious are selected and adapted for action
on the world outside us. In the past we have unduly exaggerated the
importance of the conscious intellect. To claim for it the discoveries
of civilisation is to confuse the instrument with the agent, to
attribute sight to the field-glass instead of to the eye behind it.
The value of the conscious mind must not be underrated, however. It is
a machine of the greatest value, the seat of reason, the social
instincts and moral concepts. But it _is_ a machine and not the
engine, nor yet the engineer. It provides neither material nor power.
These are furnished by the Unconscious.

These two strata of mental life are in perpetual interaction one with
the other. Just as everything conscious has its preliminary step in
the Unconscious, so every conscious thought passes down into the lower
stratum and there becomes an element in our being, partaking of the
Unconscious energy, and playing its part in supervising and determining
our mental and bodily states. If it is a healthful thought we are so
much the better; if it is a diseased one we are so much the worse. It
is this transformation of a thought into an element of our life that we
call Autosuggestion. Since this is a normal part of the mind's action
we shall have no difficulty in finding evidence of it in our daily
experiences.

Walking down the street in a gloomy frame of mind you meet a buoyant,
cheery acquaintance. The mere sight of his genial smile acts on you
like a tonic, and when you have chatted with him for a few minutes your
gloom has disappeared, giving place to cheerfulness and confidence.
What has effected this change?--Nothing other than the idea in your own
mind. As you watched his face, listened to his good