Crile reminds us of a fact that is often noticed by surgeons. If
patients under ether are handled roughly, especially in the intestinal
region, respiration quickens and there are tremors and even convulsive
efforts which interfere with the surgeon's work. The conscious mind
cannot feel. It is asleep. But the subconscious mind, whose business
it is to protect the body, is trying to get away from injury. The body
uses up as much energy as though it had run for miles, and when the
patient wakes up, we say that he is suffering from shock. The
subconscious mind which is not affected by ether, has been exhausting
itself in a vain attempt to get the body away from harm.

=A Tireless Servant.= When the conscious mind undertakes a job, it is
always more or less subject to fatigue. But the subconscious after its
long practice seems never to tire. We say that its activities have
become automatic. With all its inherited skill, the subconscious, if
left to itself, can be depended upon to run the bodily machinery
without effort and without hitch. The only things that can interfere
with its work are the wrong kind of emotions and the wrong kind of
suggestions from the conscious mind. Barring these, it goes its way
like a trusty servant, looking after details and leaving its master's
mind free for other things. Having been "in the family" for
generations, it knows its business and resents any interference with
its duties or any infringement of its rights.

No man, then, comes into this world without inheritance: he receives
from his ancestors two goodly sets of heirlooms, the instincts and the
mechanism which carries on bodily functions. This is the capital with
which man starts life; but immediately he begins increasing this
capital, adding memories from his own experience to the accumulated