Abstract
NOT very long ago the province of psychology was supposed to be confined to the study of the phenomena of consciousness. Recently, however, its narrow limits have been allowed to be transcended; but even, now the vast majority of psychologists is so exclusively occupied in inquiring into the effect of the conscious on the unconscious that scarcely any amount of justice has been done to the study of the influence of the unconscious on the conscious. Yet this latter inquiry is by no means insignificant. In fact, it counts for more and more. It is not merely that some actions, unconscious in the beginning, gradually become conscious through the constant interference of volition, and vice versâ. It is that the entire range of conscious activity is in essence reflex. The conscious, which is the superstructure of our mental life, has for its underground substratum the unconscious which moulds its shape and guides its course. Thus the conscious, which, superficially viewed, seems to control and modify reflexes is, in fact, itself a species of reflex.
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MAJID, A. Phenomena of the Conscious and Unconscious. Nature 93, 428 (1914). https://doi.org/10.1038/093428b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/093428b0
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