, etc.) it is just the reverse. Here is the bold part of
the hypothesis: Its authors suppose that the supremacy of the subliminal
consciousness is a reversion, a return to the ancestral. In the higher
animals and in primitive man, according to them, all trophic actions
entered consciousness and were regulated by it. In the course of
evolution this became organized; the higher consciousness has delegated
to the subliminal consciousness the care of silently governing the
vegetative life. But in case of mental disintegration there occurs a
return to the primitive state. In this manner they explain burns through
suggestion, stigmata, trophic changes of a miraculous appearance, etc.
It is needless to dwell on this conception of the unconscious. It has
been vehemently criticised, notably by Bramwell, who remarks that if
certain faculties could little by little fall into the domain of
subliminal consciousness because they were no longer necessary for the
struggle for life, there are nevertheless faculties so essential to the
well-being of the individual that we ask ourselves how they have been
able to escape from the control of the will. If, for example, some lower
type had the power of arresting pain, how could it lose it?

At the foundation of the psychological theory in all its forms is the
unexpressed hypothesis that consciousness may be likened to a quantity
that forever decreases without reaching zero. This is a postulate that
nothing justifies. The experiments of psychophysicists, without solving
the question, would support rather the opposite view. We know that the
"threshold of consciousness" or minimum perceptible quantity, appears
and disappears suddenly; the excitation is not felt under a determinate
limit. Likewise in regard to the "summit of perception" or maximum
perceptible, any increase of excitation is no longer felt if above a
determinate limit. Moreover, in order that an increase or diminution be
felt between these two extreme limits, it is necessary that both have a
constant relation--differential threshold--as is expressed in Weber's
law. All these facts, and others that I omit, are not favorable to the
thesis of growing or diminishing continuity of consciousness. It has
even been maintained that consciousness "has an aversion for
continuity."

To sum up: The two rival theories are equally unable to penetrate into
the inner nature of the unconscious factor. We have thus had to limit
ourselves to taking i