272 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



nant over others, or they can become dominant 

 through becoming associated with primarily domi- 

 nant ideas, or by receiving a larger share of atten- 

 tion. Attention, concentration, what you will, is 

 one of the most remarkable mental functions. Not 

 only can the metaphor of intense illumination of a 

 particular field be justly used of it, but we may say 

 that it seems to accelerate the flow of menal process 

 through a particular channel, and so to draw into 

 that channel the contents of other channels in con- 

 nection with it, just as a rapid flow of water through 

 a pipe sucks in water from connected pipes. 



As a result of this, sublimation involves not the 

 suppression or repression of instincts and emotional 

 experiences, nor merely the summation of them with 

 another instinct, but their utilization as parts of a 

 new whole, of which the dominant instinct is like 

 the controlling head. 



When the sex-instinct is repressed, the emotional 

 and religious life is meagre, though often violent. 

 When the sex-instinct and the religious feeling exist 

 side by side, without conflict but without union, you 

 have "the natural man" of St. Paul; but when the 

 religious ideals are dominant, and can catch up 

 the sex-instinct into themselves, and in so doing give 

 it a new form and a new direction, then you get one 

 of the highest types of emotional lives. Or fear may 

 be sublimated to reverence; or sex again to art or to 

 philanthropy. 



In every case, a new and more complicated mental 



