ABSTRACT
There is a certain analogy between the execution of a series of post-hypnotic suggestions and the development of the impulses of man. To the individual who has awakened from hypnotic sleep his acts seem but the natural consequences of former conscious motives, and it is difficult to convince him that they are really due to unconscious suggestions. To the child his new impulses seem to be intelligent developments of the old, rather than consequences of innate dispositions. In both cases conscious motives are selected which satisfy also the predetermined purpose. In the following discussion we shall be in danger of the same error as the subject of hypnosis or the child. The development of impulses from one another will sometimes seem the inevitable action of environment upon a fortuitous collection of receptors, nerve fibres, and effectors devoid of pre-determined pattern. But when we are tempted to think thus, we should remember the hypnotic suggestion. New impulses are developed, not because they are the only possible modifications of the old, but because they are the only ones, from innumerable possibilities, which correspond to inborn dispositions. The individual finds his way, not because it is the only way, but because the race has blazed the trail.
