260 THE FOUNDATIONS OF ZOOLOGY 



the members of a church choir that they have been absorbed in 

 trivial gossip while producing solemn harmony. 



We all know the feeling of surprise that the time has passed 

 and that so much has been done after an hour of absorbed study ; 

 and many profound thinkers on abstract subjects assure us that 

 their best efforts in reasoning are those which go on in ecstatic 

 unconsciousness of self or of the intellectual process. I imagine 

 many a thinker grows conscious of cold feet and an empty stomach 

 before he becomes aware what he has been about or how hard he 

 has worked. 



It may be said that while the piano player, or even the watch- 

 maker, might carry on their acquired arts unconsciously, the 

 training which has set apart and bound together the series of 

 bodily movements was accompanied by conscious attention, but 

 there is no reason to suppose that the mere repetition of these 

 acts would not give the same result if it could be brought about in 

 unconsciousness ; for all teachers and all good students know that 

 the effort to attend is more difficult than the mere act of acquisition. 

 Training is most valuable and most rapid when attention comes 

 without conscious effort ; when the brain is a passive recipient. 



No one except the Lamarckians supposes that training gives 

 the watchmaker any new muscles or nerves, or that it enables 

 him to execute any bodily movements which are not within the 

 reach of any other normal human being whose muscles are 

 equally plastic and delicate and definite in action. We have 

 already seen, page 60, that physical training is beneficial only so 

 far as structural adjustments for bringing about improvement by 

 use already exist, and that it corrects our actions by converting 

 confused and perplexed movements into exact and definite ones; 

 nor does there seem to be any good reason to believe that the 

 case is any different when mental nurture is in question, or to be- 

 lieve that mental powers which come with training are different 

 in kind from those that " come by nature." 



" Newton said that he made his discoveries by intending his 

 mind on the subject'; no doubt, truly." " But to equal his suc- 

 cess," says Huxley, "one must have the mind which he intended. 

 Forty lesser men might have intended their minds till they 

 cracked, without any like result." 



