William James adopted much the same view as Myers (see, for example, The Varieties of Religious Experience). But much has been written of late about sub-consciousness and about dreams; and the tendency is rather to follow Martineau’s view of mental development—that the lower nervous centres are unconscious “habits” deposited from the old intelligence ([see p. 304]). Thus, for instance, memories of the past would be recorded in the sub-conscious, but there is nothing to be found there of a higher character than in the conscious self. In sleep, the waking control being removed, our dreams reveal impulses and desires that have been inhibited or kept under in waking life, but do not reveal anything of the higher indicated by Myers. However, although it is too large a subject to discuss here, there is a vast deal yet to be explained, as, for example, inspiration, and what we used to call “unconscious cerebration,” and the amazing results of hypnotism and suggestion. Also who or what is it that composes the dream-story, or who or what makes us act or dream the story?
Without good nature man is but a better kind of vermin.
Extreme self-lovers will set a man’s house on fire, though it were but to roast their eggs.
Bacon.
Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.