If we consider the psychological relations of the processes involved in the above illustrations, we are led to the conviction that we seldom exert our powers to their full capacity. Instances in which, under the influence of some stirring, perhaps dangerous circumstance, persons exert physical energies ordinarily beyond their resources, are quite familiar; and the same is true though less readily demonstrated of mental effort. The success of the various methods of "mind cure," in which the conviction of the possibility of a cure so markedly aids its realization, adds another class of illustrations; and among the experiments with hypnotized persons occur countless instances of the performance of actions, both physical and mental, quite surpassing what is regarded as normal. The powers which are here called upon through somewhat extreme and drastic means, can doubtless be drawn upon to a less extent by the use of more moderate agencies; and this at once suggests the educational utilization of the mental attitude in question. Perhaps the ideal aim is to impress the student indirectly rather than directly, by manner rather than by instruction, with the conviction that what is required of him is well within his powers; and to do this without in the least impugning the necessity of honest, hard work for the accomplishment of serious results. The complaint is often made that the American boy takes longer by several years to reach a given grade of scholarship than his foreign brother; and the reason of this difference is usually assigned to the extremely slow progress made in the elementary public schools. The machinery is started at too slow a rate, and seems to leave the impress of its inertia upon all succeeding periods.
It is not possible to devise any readily formulated and easily applied cure for this mental prepossession; our aim must be to sterilize the mental atmosphere, so that the germs of the disease may not gain a foothold; to set a healthy normal step and take it for granted that it can be followed by all but the laggards. But in spite of all effort, the failing is quite certain to crop out, and will always continue to demand for its treatment much educational tact and insight.
When we come to a slippery place in the road, we involuntarily take short steps and become extremely conscious of our locomotion. It is important to prevent the growth of the habit of imagining slippery places in the paths about to be trodden; and even when they are actually to be encountered, it is well to meet them with the bracing effort that comes from the use of a reserve energy, to proceed without too much consciousness of the path, and with as nearly a normal gait as possible. There are sufficient difficulties in the various walks of life without adding to them those that arise from mental prepossession, and that lead to mental inertia.
A STUDY OF INVOLUNTARY MOVEMENTS
I
Quite a number of delusions find a common point of origin in the natural tendency to view our mental life—the aggregate of our thoughts and doings—as coextensive with the experiences of which our consciousness gives information and which our will directs. The significance of the unconscious and the involuntary is apt to be underestimated or disregarded. We are more ready to acknowledge that in certain unusual and semi-morbid conditions persons will exhibit these peculiar expressions of the subterranean strata of our mental structure—that some have the habit of walking or talking in their sleep, that others occasionally fall into an automatic, trance-like condition, that hypnotism and hysteria and obscure lapses of consciousness and alterations of personality bring to the surface curious specimens of the mysteries of this underworld,—but we are slow to appreciate that the subconscious and the involuntary find a common and a natural place amidst the soundly reasoned and aptly directed activities of our own intelligence. While it is reasonable and proper to have faith in the testimony of consciousness, it is desirable that this confidence should be accompanied by an understanding of the conditions under which such testimony is presumably valid, and when presumably defective or misleading. Sense-deceptions, faulty observation, distraction, exaggeration, illusion, fallacy, and error are not idle abstract fancies of the psychologist, but stern realities; and their existence emphasizes the need in the determination of truth and the maintenance of a sound rationality, of a calm, unprejudiced judgment, of an experienced and balanced intelligence, of a discerning sense for nice distinctions, of an appreciation of the circumstances under which it is peculiarly human to err. A demonstration of the readiness with which perfectly normal individuals may be induced to yield visible evidence of unconscious and involuntary processes, thus possesses a special interest; for when the naturalness of a few definite types of involuntary movements is made clear, the application of the experience to more complex and more indefinite circumstances will easily and logically follow. While the circumstances under which involuntary indications of mental activity are ordinarily given, are too various to enable one to say ab uno disce omnes, yet the principle demonstrated in one case is capable of a considerable generalization, which will go far to prevent misconception of apparently mysterious and exceptional phenomena.