Note 29 — Chapter III · THE ORGANIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

The biological (organic) continuity between the societal or psychological and the functional or physiological spheres is interesting in view of their obvious homologies as shown in the marked suggestive influences which we see passing over from the psychological sphere and affecting the processes pertaining to the functional or physiological sphere and doubtless operating no less in the reverse direction. One wonders without undue presumption how many so-called “organic” diseases are not primarily functional and hence functionally modifiable through the integral, societal agency of an organic analysis, provided, of course, that the separative process has not already crystallized into the static condition of structural alteration. At least it is clear that many so-called physical derangements need to be frankly regarded in the light of sheer somatic hysterias. See “The Psychological Analysis of So-called Neurasthenic and Allied States,” The Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. VIII, 1913–14, page 246, note 1.

An analogous condition is demonstrable in the physical universe in the fact that the phenomena of gravitation (such as planetary motion) and the phenomena of electricity (including the motion of light) have been proved to be so intimately related to one another as to be regarded now by the physicists “as parts of one vast system embracing all Nature.”