42 



Under our present law, which seems to be well enforced, it is a pleasure to say 

 our birds are apparently free from that danger. 



Changes still continue. The future will record them as has the past. 

 Those to come promise to be more fruitful of results, to be of greater moment to 

 mankind, to bring more earnest messages for human weal or woe. But no time 

 in the future will the changes in the aspects of nature here be so noticeable, so 

 incomprehensible, l)ecause of their vastness, as have those of the century just 

 closing. 



Unconscious Mental Cerebration. By C. E. Xewlin. 



If it be true, as Dr. Kay says, that "our mental progress is in the direction 

 of our becoming unconscious, or largely unconscious, of many of our ac.ivities," 

 and "the great object of education should be to transfer as much as possible of 

 our actions from the conscious to the unconscious regions of the mind," it seems 

 to me our eflbrts should be more largely directed to the training of the mind in 

 its method of acting, and less to the accomplishing of definite tasks. It seems to 

 me that much of our failure in accomplishing results is caused by the very effort 

 to accomplish them. The worry over the effort and the intense desire to succeed 

 incapacitates the mind for clear action. If we could only be oblivious to the 

 efTort to think out a problem in any phase of life we would more easily reach the 

 desired end. As in riding on a smoothly moving train, we are unconscious of the 

 motion until we look out on the ])assing objects, so we should he entirely uncon- 

 scious of the vehicle of thought and the ends to 1)e attained, and let the mind 

 attend to its thinking unhindered. 



Dr. Mandsly says: "The interference of consciousness is often an actual 

 hindrance to the association of ideas." 



Much of this desired condition is attained through cultivation of the facul- 

 ties. When an action becomes a habit the reflex action is unconscious. Dr. Kay 

 says: "The more we cultivate and train any faculty or power, the more easily 

 and rapidly does it perform its work; the less consciousness concerned in it the 

 more work does it accomplish and the less does it fatigue." 



Dr. Morrell says: "A purely unconscious action is accompanied by no 

 fatigue at all." In my investigation I am convinced he is very nearly, if not en- 

 tirely, correct. For example, the receiving teller of a bank will run up the long 

 columns of ligures in adding with case, and fatigue only to the extent of his con- 

 sciousness of his acts. 



But I am convinced this is not altogether a matter of practice. It is partly 

 due to the method of thought. He reads the figures and their combinations much 

 as one reads words, without thinking consciously of each letter in the words. A 



