People, in fact, who in their conversation handle double meanings with art, know very well that, by underlining a word, by an inflexion of the voice, a look, a gesture, they will awake in the minds of their audience a series of ideas and emotions of a nature different from that indicated by their words. The simple phrase of allusion, when perceived in the brain in the form of a phonetic impression, follows, as it were, two parallel routes—one natural, apparent, traced by the word itself ; the other roundabout, divergent, traced by the intonation and gesture. There result thus from these simultaneous processes, which are propa gated through the cerebral tissue, various series of unconscious reactions, which, in the form of memories, associated ideas, and different sentiments, are succes sively awakened. Hence the unexpected, vivid, and piquant relations between certain ideas that provoke hilarity, and certain distant thoughts which may cause the fibres of our inner emotivity to vibrate in a more or less indirect manner.
What more simple, apparently, than to speak of a cradle to a young girl, and yet what more cutting, since one is sure to see her sensibility in agitation betray itself by the blush of modesty ? A vulgar proverb, in the same circle of ideas, says that " We must not speak of a rope in the house of one who has been hung." The ancients, at the door of the lupanars, used to inscribe these words : " Cave canem," etc., etc.
It is in these processes, which plunge as it were by multiple roots into the fruitful stores of our memories and emotions, present and past, that dra matic literature finds its most powerful machinery. How many pathetic, and, more often still, how many comic, scenes are produced by nothing but the apparent contrast between the visible situation of the personages on the stage and the gestures and intona tions of the actors, which appeal to quite another genus of ideas, thus automatically provoking, by this very fact, bursts of laughter or movements of terror—even in situations which are apparently far from inspiring gaiety or terror. • It is always the automatic activity of the cerebral elements that comes into play in those different con ditions, provoked in the sensoriunz by means of plays on words and certain well-made puns.
It is, in fact, in consequence of the unexpected asso ciation of two opposite ideas that the hilarious paroxysm is produced in us.* Reflexion of Automatic Activity.—One of the most interesting facts as regards the phenomena of auto matic activity is this : that they are not only maintained by means of the incessant influx of excitations which come from the external world, impinge upon the sen sorium, and demand its active participation, but that, in addition, they reveal themselves of their own accord, old memories forming in us, as it were, so many autogenic foci, which kindle themselves. From this it results that, by means of this prolongation of former excitations, automatic activity feeds itself, maintains itself locally, and develops itself in the form of medita tion and reflexion at the expense of the stores accumu lated in the past, which thus become the aliments of its incessant activity.
We all know that, when we have to come to a resolution, we have, as it is said, need for reflection, for maturing it in our mind ; that is to say, must give it up to the automatic activity of our mind, which takes possession of it, reacts in consequence, and causes new ideas, unexpected thoughts, unforeseen points of sight, which give it more weight, to arise. Night, it is said, brings counsel ; that is to say, in consequence of simple repose the cerebral elements have recovered their proper vitality, and have become more fit to develop their natural energies in presence of the resolution in question. ThUs it is that the automatic forces of the brain, concentrated around a circle of definite ideas, develop themselves automatically, provoke the inter vention of new elements, and finally create quite new methods of seeing and considering things. And what is well worth attention is that all this series of mar vellous phenomena develops itself main proprio, and outside of the conscious personality, which looks on at this subtle work, and is as powerless to excite it when it slackens, as to restrain it when it is developed in excess ! Automatism in the Sphere of the Psychic Activity automatic energies of the cerebral ele ments, as we have just seen, play a principal part in the processes of sensorial perception, as in those of intel lectual activity proper. If we now pass to the examination of the phenomena of purely psychical activity—that is to say, of those which are characterized by moral sen sibility and emotivity—it is not without surprise that we see that these same automatic vital forces reveal themselves here also with clearly distinguished cha racters, and that while always active, always identical, under the most diverse forms—either under the name of involuntary temptation, irresistible impulse, etc., they always betray the inner secrets of the emotional regions of the sensorium where they have originated, even in presence of the conscious will, which is powerless to regulate their manifestations.* The labour of life is an incessant struggle between the acts of conscious volition and the automatic impulses of the emotional regions of our being. Ordinary lan guage is rich in metaphors which express in appropriate forms what is unalterable and inevitable in this special domain of our mental activity. These phrases : im pulses, enthusiasms of the heart, sentimental biases, spontaneous outbursts of tenderness, are trite and even silly expressions by which we have always expressed those manifestations of our sensitive nature, in which * Emotional sensibility develops itself so involuntarily, that in the theatre, even when we know that all that is there represented is but fiction, the simple sight or heirmg of pathetic scenes suffices to set our restrained sen.i Linty in vibration, and spite of us causes our tears to flow.