It is true that, in his case, we can appeal to heredity
and to memory; but is this difference enough to settle the
difficulty and definitely to separate the two phenomena? To
appeal to heredity is still to appeal to the subliminal; and it
is not at all certain that the latter is limited by the interest
of the organism sheltering it. It appears, on the contrary, in
many circumstances, to spread and extend far beyond that organism
in which it is domiciled, one would say, accidentally and
provisionally. It likes to show, apparently, that it is in
relation with all that exists. It declares itself, as often as
possible, universal and impersonal. It has but a very indifferent
care, as we have seen in the matter of apparitions and
premonitions, for the happiness and even the safety of its host
and protector. It prophesies to its companion of a lifetime
events which he cannot avoid or which do not concern him. It
makes him see beforehand, for instance, all the circumstances of
the death of a stranger whom he will only hear of after the
event, when this event is irrevocable. It brings a crowd of
barren presentiments and conjures up veridical hallucinations
that are wholly alien and idle. With psychometric, typtological
or materializing mediums, it practises art for art's sake, mocks
at space and time, passes through personalities, sees through
solid bodies, brings into communication thoughts and motions
worlds apart, reads souls and lives by the light of a flower, a
rag of a scrap of paper; and all this for nothing, to amuse
itself, to astonish us, because it adores the superfluous, the
incoherent, the unexpected, the improbable, the bewildering, or
rather, perhaps, because it is a huge, rough, undisciplined force
still struggling in the darkness and coming to the surface only
by wild fits and starts, because it is an enormous expansion of a
spirit striving to collect itself, to achieve consciousness, to
make itself of service and to obtain a hearing.
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