h fund of unconscious elaboration. On the other
hand, shallow minds have a naturally poor unconscious fund, capable of
but slight development; they give out immediately and rapidly all that
they are able to give; they have no reserve. It is useless to allow them
time for reflection or invention. They will not do better; they may do
worse.

As to the nature of the unconscious working, we find disagreement and
darkness. One may doubtless maintain, theoretically, that in the
inventor everything goes on in subconsciousness and in unconsciousness,
just as in consciousness itself, with the exception that a message does
not arrive as far as the self; that the labor that may be followed, in
clear consciousness, in its progress and retreats, remains the same when
it continues unknown to us. This is possible. Yet it must at least be
recognized that consciousness is rigorously subject to the condition of
time, the unconscious is not. This difference, not to mention others, is
not negligible, and could well arouse other problems.

The contemporary theories regarding the nature of the unconscious seem
to me reducible to two principal positions--one psychological, the other
physiological.

1. The physiological theory is simple and scarcely permits any
variations. According to it, unconscious activity is simply cerebral; it
is an "unconscious cerebration." The psychic factor, which ordinarily
accompanies the activity of the nervous centers, is absent. Although I
incline toward this hypothesis, I confess that it is full of
difficulties.

It has been proven through numerous experiments (Fere, Binet, Mosso,
Janet, Newbold, etc.) that "unconscious sensations"[160] act, since they
produce the same reactions as conscious sensations, and Mosso has been
able to maintain that "the testimony of consciousness is less certain
than that of the sphygmograph." But the particular instance of invention
is very different; for it does not merely suppose the adaptation to an
end which the physiological factor would suffice to explain; it implies
a series of adaptations, corrections, rational operations, of which
nervous activity alone furnishes us no example.[161]

2. The psychological theory is based on an equivocal use of the word
consciousness. Consciousness has one definite mark--it is an internal
event existing, not by itself, but for me and insofar as it is known by
me. But the psychological theory of the unconscious assumes that if we
descen