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This is a rather formidable-looking volume by the learned Doctor Varendonck, who wrote “The Psychology of Day-Dreams.” It is an elaboration of certain of the mental processes which are, wholly or in part, unconscious.
Thus, he discusses two forms of memory, reduplicative memory and synthetical, conception, unconscious movements, and, finally, unconsciousness. The whole book is devoted to the thesis that intellectual processes, such as ratiocination, usually considered as inseparable from consciousness, may actually take place in the unconscious. In other words, the essentials of Baldwin's formula-outer excitation, inner process, reaction-may take place entirely apart from awareness. This Varendonck proves by the study of day-dreams.
His book shows many of the stylistic defects apparently ineluctable when one of his nationality essays a treatise and, in addition, the English is not always limpid. In short, the going is rather hard. But there is a great deal of interest in the book, and it is a noteworthy contribution to the study of unconscious states.
Lind