Why it is that the objective mind has been invested with the controlling influence, limited as are its resources and feeble as are its powers, is a question upon which it would be idle to speculate. It profits us only to know the fact and to study its practical significance, without wasting our energies in seeking to know the ultimate cause. We may rest assured that in this, as in all other laws of Nature, we shall find infinite wisdom.
If any one doubts the wisdom of investing the objective mind with the controlling power in the dual organization, let him visit a madhouse. There he will see all shades and degrees of subjective control. There he will see men whose objective minds have completely abdicated the throne, and whose subjective minds are in pursuit of one idea—controlled by one dominant impression, which subordinates all others. These are the monomaniacs—the victims of false suggestions. These suggestions may be given from without, in a thousand different ways which will be readily recognized by the student of insanity, or by auto-suggestion. Long and intense concentration of mind upon one subject, and inordinate egotism, will be readily recognized as striking illustrations of the power of auto-suggestion as a factor in monomania. The maniac is one whose objective mind is disorganized by disease of its organ, the brain; the result being distortion of objective impressions, and consequent false suggestions to the subjective mind.
Those who study the subject from this standpoint will find an easy solution to many an obscure problem. The subject is here adverted to merely to show the consequences arising from allowing the subjective mind to usurp complete control of the mental organization. It will be readily seen that human society, outside of lunatic asylums, constantly furnishes numerous examples of abnormal subjective control. So generally is this fact recognized that it has passed into a proverb that "every man is insane on some subject."
The question arises, What part does the subjective mind play in the normal operation of the human intellect? This question may be answered in a general way by saying that the most perfect exhibition of intellectual power is the result of the synchronous action of the objective and subjective minds. When this is seen in its perfection the world names it genius. In this condition the individual has the benefit of all the reasoning powers of the objective mind, combined with the perfect memory of the subjective mind and its marvellous power of syllogistic arrangement of its resources. In short, all the elements of intellectual power are then in a state of intense and harmonious activity. This condition may be perfectly normal, though it is rarely seen in its perfection. Probably the most striking examples which history affords were Napoleon Bonaparte and Shakspeare. The intelligent student of the history of their lives and work will not fail to recall a thousand incidents which illustrate the truth of this proposition. True genius is undoubtedly the result of the synchronous action of the two minds, neither unduly predominating or usurping the powers and functions of the other. When the subjective is allowed to dominate, the resultant acts of the individual are denominated "the eccentricities of genius." When the subjective usurps complete control, the individual goes insane.
There are certain classes of persons whose intellectual labors are characterized by subjective activity in a very marked degree. Poets and artists are the most conspicuous examples. So marked is the peculiarity of the poetic mind in this respect that it has become almost proverbial. Lord Macaulay, in his Essay on Milton, uses language which shows that he clearly recognized the subjective element in all true poetry. He says:—
"Perhaps no man can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind—if anything which gives so much pleasure ought to be called unsoundness. By poetry we mean not, of course, all writing in verse, nor even all good writing in verse. Our definition excludes many metrical compositions which on other grounds deserve the highest praise. By poetry we mean the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words what the painter does by means of colors. Thus the greatest of poets has described it, in lines universally admired for the vigor and felicity of their diction, and still more valuable on account of the just notion which they convey of the art in which he excelled.
"'As imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.'
"These are the fruits of the 'fine frenzy' which he ascribes to the poet—a fine frenzy doubtless, but still a frenzy. Truth, indeed, is essential to poetry, but it is the truth of madness. The reasonings are just, but the premises are false. After the first suppositions have been made, everything ought to be consistent; but those first suppositions require a degree of credulity which almost amounts to a partial and temporary derangement of the intellect. Hence, of all people, children are the most imaginative. They abandon themselves without reserve to every illusion. Every image which is strongly presented to their mental eye produces on them the effect of reality. No man, whatever his sensibility may be, is ever affected by Hamlet or Lear as a little girl is affected by the story of poor Red-Riding-Hood. She knows that it is all false, that wolves cannot speak, that there are no wolves in England. Yet in spite of her knowledge she believes; she weeps; she trembles; she dares not go into a dark room, lest she should feel the teeth of the monster at her throat. Such is the despotism of the imagination over uncivilized minds."
In other words, such is the despotism of suggestion over the subjective mind. No truer statement of the methods of subjective mental action could be written. "The reasonings are just, but the premises are false," says Macaulay. True, the deductive reasonings of the subjective mind are always just, logical, syllogistically perfect, and are equally so whether the premises are false or true.
Macaulay's remark concerning children is eminently philosophical and true to nature. Children are almost purely subjective; and no one needs to be told how completely a suggestion, true or false, will take control of their minds. This is seen in perfection when children are playing games in which one of them is supposed to be a wild beast. The others will flee in affected terror from the beast; but the affectation often becomes a real emotion, and tears, and sometimes convulsions, result from their fright.
The remark elsewhere made regarding the eccentricities of genius applies in a marked degree to poets. It is probable that in all the greater poets the subjective mind often predominates. Certainly the subjective element is dominant in their works. The career of Lord Byron is at once a splendid illustration of the marvellous powers and the inexhaustible resources of the subjective mind in a man of learning and cultivation, and a sad commentary on the folly and danger of allowing the subjective mind to usurp control of the dual mental organization.
Many of the poems of Coleridge furnish striking examples of the dominance of the subjective in poetry. His readers will readily recall the celebrated fragment entitled "Kubla Khan; or, a Vision in a Dream," beginning as follows:—
"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree—
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."
It is unfortunately true that the subjective condition in his case was often brought about by artificial means; and it is expressly stated in a prefatory note to "Kubla Khan" that this fragment was written while under the influence of an anodyne. As an illustration of the principle under consideration it is, however, none the less