number of these forms,
tend to diminish. He will slowly arrive at the stage when there shall
be one only that he will proclaim, or reserve; when it shall be
revealed to him that this last form, this last name, is truly no more
than the last image of a power whose throne was always within him.
Then will the gods that had gone forth from us be found again in
ourselves; and it is there that we will question them to-day.

10

I hold therefore that it is in this unconscious life of ours, in this
existence that is so vast, so divine, so inexhaustible and
unfathomable, that we must seek for the explanation of fortunate or
contrary chances. Within us is a being that is our veritable ego, our
first-born: immemorial, illimitable, universal, and probably immortal.
Our intellect, which is merely a kind of phosphorescence that plays on
this inner sea, has as yet but faint knowledge of it. But our
intellect is gradually learning that every secret of the human
phenomena it has hitherto not understood must reside there, and there
alone. This unconscious being lives on another plane than our
intellect, in another world. It knows nothing of Time and Space, the
two formidable but illusory walls between which our reason must flow if
it would not be hopelessly lost. It knows no proximity, it knows no
distance; past and future concern it not, or the resistance of matter.
It is familiar with all things; there is nothing it cannot do. To this
power, this knowledge, we have indeed at all times accorded a certain
varying recognition; we have given names to its manifestations, we have
called them instinct, soul, unconsciousness, sub-consciousness, reflex
action, presentiment, intuition, &c. We credit it more especially with
the indeterminate and often prodigious force contained in those of our
nerves that do not directly serve to produce our will and our reason: a
force that would appear to be the very fluid of life. Its nature is
probably more or less the same in all men; but it has very different
methods of communicating with the intellect. In some men this unknown
principle is enshrined at so great a depth that it concerns itself
solely with physical functions and the permanence of the species;
whereas in others it would seem to be for ever on the alert, rising
again and again to the surface of external and conscious life, which
its fairy-like presence quickens; intervening at every instant,
warning, deciding, counselling; blend