NEW BOOKS. 27H Par Docteur E. GYEL. Paris: Fi-lix Alcan, 1899. Pp. 191. This book, though intended for serious students, will have considerable attraction for the general reader. It is short, systematically arranged, and written with great clearness. It contains accounts of some striking cases of multiple personality, thought-transference, etc. It asserts the necessity of regarding force, intelligence, and matter as forms of the single principle of the universe, touches on the miseries of life and the desire for immortality, and declares that only the scientific explanation of facts can lead the way to a philosophy that will satisfy mankind. Dr. Gyel's main object is to explain what he understands by the sub- conscious being and by its power of " exteriorisation " or manifestation of itself apart from the physical organism of the conscious being, and to show how this hypothesis throws light on facts which are left unexplained by the hypothesis that mind is a function of the brain. The subconscious being coexists with the normal conscious being, and can act, perceive and think independently of the muscles, the organs of sense and the brain. It has a substratum of homogeneous fluid sub- stance, which is inaccessible to the normal senses, can pass through solid objects, and can be in part projected to a great distance. By the action of the subconscious will it can be caused to assume different forms ; and in the process of exteriorisation, which takes place in the trances of mediums or in the sleep of hypnotic subjects, it may take organic molecules with it. Its knowledge is partially acquired through the normal senses, either consciously or not, and partially by means which cannot be normal. It is reasonable to suppose that all subconscious psychical elements have been conscious psychical elements. But we find the subconscious being displaying knowledge which we know to have been inaccessible to the conscious being. Such cases can be explained on the hypothesis that the subconscious being is the " synthetic product of a series of successive consciousnesses," each of which ends with the death of a human organ- ism. Dr. Gyel illustrates his argument by referring in footnotes to various cases of abnormal manifestations. These are taken from Azam's Hypno- tisme et double Conscience, Rochas' Exteriorisation de la Sensibilite, Aksakof's Animixme et Spiritisms, the Annales des Sciences Psychiqui-s and other sources. " Lucidity," or the faculty of acquiring exact know- ledge without the help of the normal senses and without thought-reading, generally occurs in a state of hypnotic sleep. The subconscious being is active, the sensibility is exteriorised, and the hypnotic subject " sees " or " hears " at a great distance. Sleep is, physiologically, a resting of the nervous centres ; but the diminution of functional activity does not ex- plain the psychology of sleep. But if there is a subconscious being inde- pendent of the brain, logical and coherent dreams present no difficulty. There is no satisfactory physiological explanation of hysteria. Dr. Gyel suggests that it is due to defective subconscious direction, which may be caused in various ways. The external influence of circumstances and education on the conscious being may be too strong. The organism may be complicated and the subconscious being not sufficiently developed to know how to use it. Or the subconscious being may be too highly developed and consequently forced to struggle with an organism too coarse for its purposes. Again, the existence of a subconscious being would account for the permanence of personality amid molecular changes. The most difficult part of the theory is the relation between conscious- ness and subconsciousness. The one is transient personality, the other, enduring individuality. The part of consciousness is to enrich subcon- 18
