minds.

CHAPTER VI.

SUGGESTION AND INSTINCT.

"Anima non nascitur sed fit," ut ait.--TERTULLIANUS.

"Post quam loquuti sumus de anima rationali, intellectuali
(_immortali_) et quia ad inferiores descendimus jam gradus
animae, scilicet animae mortalis quae animalium est."
--PETRUS GREGORIUS THOLOSANUS.

It must have struck many readers that the action of a mind under
hypnotic influence, be it of another or of self, involves strange
questions as regards Consciousness. For it is very evident from
recorded facts, that people can actually reason and act without waking
consciousness, in a state of mind which resembles instinct, which is a
kind of cerebration, or acting under habits and impressions supplied
by memory and formed by practice, but not according to what we
understand by Reason or Judgment.

All things in nature have their sleep or rest, night is the sleep of
the world, death the repose of Nature or Life--the solid temples, the
great globe itself, dissolve to awaken again; so man hath in him, as
it were, a company of workmen, some of whom labor by day, while others
watch by night, during which time they, unseen, have their fantastic
frolics known as dreams. The Guardian or Master of the daily hours,
appears in a great measure to conform his action closely to average
duties of life, in accordance with those of all other men. He picks
out from the millions of images or ideas in the memory, uses and
becomes familiar with a certain number, and lets the rest sleep. This
master or active agent is probably himself a Master-Idea--the result
of the correlative action of all the others, a kind of consensus made
personal, an elected Queen Bee, as I have otherwise described him or
her.

But he is not the only thinker--there are all over the body ganglions
which act by a kind of fluid instinct, born of repetition, and when
the tired master even drowses or nods, or falls into a brown study,
then a marvelously curious mental action begins to show itself, for
dreams at once flicker and peer and steal dimly about him. This is
because the waking consciousness is beginning to shut out the world--
and its set of ideas.

So consistent is the system that even if Waking Reason abstract
itself, not to sleep, but to think on one subject such as writing a
poem or inventing a machine, certain affinities will sleep or dreams
begin to show themselves. When Genius is really at work, it sweeps
along, as it w