attack of
hysterical convulsions, to whom oral appeals are made in vain, can
sometimes be induced to answer in writing questions addressed to the hand,
and thus to reveal the secret of the malady or to accept therapeutic
suggestions.

See Edmonds and Dexter, _Spiritualism_ (New York, 1853); Epes Sargent,
_Planchette, the Despair of Science_ (Boston, U.S.A., 1869); Mrs de Morgan,
_From Matter to Spirit_ (London, 1863); W. Stainton Moses, _Spirit
Teachings_ (London, 1883); _Proceedings S.P R. passim_; Th. Flournoy, _Des
Indes a la planete Mars_ (Geneva, 1900); F. Podmore, _Modern Spiritualism_
(London, 1902); F. W. H. Myers, _Human Personality_ (London, 1903); Pierre
Janet, _L'Automatisme psychologique_ (2nd ed., Paris, 1894); Morton Prince,
_The Dissociation of a Personality_ (London, 1906).

(F. P.)

AUTOMATISM. In philosophical terminology this word is used in two main
senses: (1) in ethics, for the view that man is not responsible for his
actions, which have, therefore, no moral value; (2) in psychology, for all
actions which are not the result of conation or conscious endeavour.
Certain actions being admittedly automatic, Descartes maintained that, in
regard of the lower animals, all action is purely mechanical. The same
theory has since been applied to man, with this difference that,
accompanying the mechanical phenomena of action, and entirely disconnected
with it, are the phenomena of consciousness. Thus certain physical changes
in the brain result in a given action; the concomitant mental desire or
volition is in no sense causally connected with, or prior to, the physical
change. This theory, which has been maintained by T. Huxley (_Science and
Culture_) and Shadworth Hodgson (_Metaphysic of Experience and Theory of
Practice_), must be distinguished from that of the psychophysical
parallelism, or the "double aspect theory" according to which both the
mental state and the physical phenomena result from a so-called "mind
stuff," or single substance, the material or cause of both.

Automatic acts are of two main kinds. Where the action goes on while the
attention is focused on entirely different subjects (_e.g._ in cycling), it
is purely automatic. On the other hand, if the attention is fixed on the
end or on any particular part of a given action, and the other component
parts of the action are performed unconsciously, the automatism may be
called relative.

See G. F. Stout, _Anal. Psych_, i. 258 foll.; Win. Ja