ate the
condition on which they depend. The peculiar state which enables the
phenomena to be evoked is the essential thing, not the signal which
precedes their appearance.

Within recent times another theory has arisen, which, instead of
explaining hypnotism by the arrested action of some of the brain centres
which subserve normal life, attempts to do so by the arousing of certain
powers over which we normally have little or no control. This theory
appears under different names, "Double Consciousness," "Das Doppel-Ich,"
etc., and the principle on which it depends is largely admitted by
science. William James, for example, says: "In certain persons, at
least, the total possible consciousness may be split into parts which
co-exist, but mutually ignore each other."

The clearest statement of this view was given by the late Frederic
Myers; he suggested that the stream of consciousness in which we
habitually lived was not our only one. Possibly our habitual
consciousness might be a mere selection from a multitude of thoughts
and sensations--some, at least, equally conscious with those we
empirically knew. No primacy was granted by this theory to the ordinary
waking self, except that among potential selves it appeared the fittest
to meet the needs of common life. As a rule, the waking life was
remembered in hypnosis, and the hypnotic life forgotten in the waking
state; this destroyed any claim of the primary memory to be the sole
memory. The self below the threshold of ordinary consciousness Myers
termed the "subliminal consciousness," and the empirical self of common
experience the "supraliminal." He held that to the subliminal
consciousness and memory a far wider range, both of physiological and
psychical activity, was open than to the supraliminal. The latter was
inevitably limited by the need of concentration upon recollections
useful in the struggle for existence; while the former included much
that was too rudimentary to be retained in the supraliminal memory of an
organism so advanced as that of man. The recollection of processes now
performed automatically and needing no supervision, passed out of the
supraliminal memory, but might be retained by the subliminal. The
subliminal, or hypnotic, self could exercise over the vaso-motor and
circulatory systems a degree of control unparalleled in waking life.

Thus, according to the Nancy school, the deeply hypnotised subject
responds automatically to suggestion before his