Unfortunately, however, the term has been also employed to characterize another and distinct class of facts, namely Co-[or Sub-]conscious Ideas. We shall have occasion to study these psychological phenomena in other lectures.[[134]] We have seen examples in many of the phenomena I have cited. It is sufficient to say here, that as conceived of, and as we have seen, they are very definite states of coconsciousness—a coexisting dissociated consciousness or coconsciousness of which the personal consciousness is not aware, i.e., of which it is “unconscious.” Hence they have been called “unconscious ideas” and have been included in the unconscious, particularly by German writers. But this is plainly using the term in a different sense—using it as a synonym for the longer phrase, “ideas we are unaware of,” and not as a characterization of that which is physiological and non-psychological.
“Unconscious ideas” in this sense (the equivalent of coconscious ideas) would include conscious states that we are not aware of simply because not in the focus of attention but in the fringe of the content of consciousness. The term would also include pathologically split-off and independently acting coconscious ideas or systems of ideas such as occur in hysteria, reaching their apogee in coconscious personalities and in automatic writings. Here we have a series of facts essentially different from the conceptual facts of physical residua, the form in which experiences are conceived to be conserved. Manifestly it is confusing and incorrect to define both by “the unconscious.” And to speak of the former as “unconscious ideas” and of the latter as “unconscious,” although technically correct, leads to confusion from using the term “unconscious” in two different senses.[[135]]
As a concept in a scheme of metaphysics, “unconscious ideas”—i.e., ideas of which we are not conscious, have long been recognized. Leibnitz was the first to maintain, on theoretical grounds and by a priori reasoning, the existence of ideas of which we are not aware, as did likewise Kant, influenced by Leibnitz, and later Schilling, and Herbart; while Hartmann evolved the unconscious into a biological and metaphysical system.[[136]]
By most American, English, and French psychologists such ideas, as conceived at least by Leibnitz, Kant, and Herbart, would to-day be called subconscious or coconscious ideas. Hartmann included all physiological processes of the nervous system in the Unconscious and ascribed to them special attributes (will, purpose, etc.). The Unconscious accordingly has connotations from which it is not easy to rid ourselves in dealing with it. It is generally agreed that it is desirable to have a term which shall cover all classes of facts—coconscious ideas, conserved experiences, and physiological processes—without committal of opinion as to interpretation.[[137]]
It does not follow, however, that the term “unconscious” is the one that should be chosen. On the contrary, as unconscious has two distinct and different meanings (that pertaining to unawareness and that which is non-psychological) it is a very undesirable term if we wish to be precise in our terminology. That we should have a term which shall precisely define ideas which are not in awareness and which shall distinguish them from physiological processes is necessitated by the fact that such ideas in themselves form a distinct field of investigation.
The term “subconscious” is commonly used, excepting by German writers, to characterize these coconscious ideas. In fact, by some French medical writers, particularly Janet, it is very precisely limited to such ideas. By other authors it is employed in this sense and also to include the physical residua of experiences, and sometimes with the additional meaning of unconscious physiological neurograms, or processes, which it defines—in fact, to denote any conserved experience or process outside of consciousness. On the other hand, among these authors, some do not admit the validity of the concept of coconscious ideas, but interpret all so-called subconscious manifestations as the expression of the physiological functioning of physiological neurograms in which the experiences of life are conserved. Subconscious and unconscious are, therefore, quite commonly, but not always, employed as synonyms to define two or three different classes of facts. For practical reasons, as already stated, it is desirable to have a term which shall embrace all classes of facts, and of the two terms in common use, subconscious and unconscious, the former is preferable, as it is not subject to the double meaning above mentioned. I, therefore, use the term subconscious in a generic sense to include (a) coconscious ideas or processes; (b) unconscious neurograms, and (c) unconscious processes. Of course it is only a matter of terminology. The conceptual facts may then be thus classified:
The subconscious
The coconscious
The unconscious
